Learning to Live Again
by Conspirator
Summary: Enishi’s been defeated, life is peaceful, and finally Kenshin can begin his new life as a settled man. At least, that’s the theory. In reality, he’s finding that starting this new life is more difficult than he expected.
1. Chapter 1

Enishi's been defeated, life is peaceful, and finally Kenshin can begin his new life as a settled man. At least, that's the theory. In reality, he's finding that starting this new life is more difficult than he expected.

This story assumes some familiarity with the manga version of the Jinchuu arc.

If you're looking for lots of sword fights, this isn't the story for you. If you're looking for a hot K/K romance, look elsewhere. But if you're interested in Kenshin's life right after his defeat of Enishi, you've come to the right place!

Let's all give credit where credit's due: Without Watsuki Nobuhiro, there would be no Rurouni Kenshin. We bow at your feet. Not so to Sony, Viz, Shonen Jump, and all the rest, but you are the other copyright holders, after all!

**Learning to Live Again**

**By**

**Conspirator**

**Chapter 1**

Late October 1878

It was a crisply cold October night, and Kenshin was sitting bundled up on the dojo roof staring out at the stars. He had been doing a lot of this lately. At first he chalked it up to his not being a city person. After all, he had been born on a farm and raised by a hermit, and it went without saying that his first experience with city living as a teenager had been disastrous. Okay, perhaps if there hadn't been a revolution going on at the time, and perhaps if he hadn't been brought to the city for the express purpose of participating in that revolution, it wouldn't have been so disastrous.

Still, he remembered the shock of arriving in Kyoto at the tender age of fourteen. He had been so wide-eyed and naïve back then, had never seen a town bigger than about ten shops on a dirt track, and suddenly there he was in the midst of millions of people and nowhere to go to get away from them. When he finally left Kyoto forever, the peace and solitude of the countryside had hit him like a thunderclap, and it had been a solace to him. Now, after seven months in crowded Tokyo, he often found himself longing again for that peace and solitude, but where, other than at some temple, was he going to find it? The dojo roof made perfect sense, and it always seemed to do the trick.

But on this night, as with the night before and the night before that—in fact as with every night for the entire week—the longed-for peace and tranquility that he usually found up there kept eluding him. Something was gnawing at him that he couldn't quite put his finger on, and it had been driving him crazy. It couldn't be because Sano and Megumi had left. After all, he told himself, wasn't he used to having people he cared about disappear from his life, either through death or because of his own need to keep wandering? He had to admit, though, that he felt their absence keenly. And it couldn't be that he was unhappy living where he was—far from it. No, he had found a real sense of purpose in mentoring young Yahiko, and that had made his life almost seem worthwhile, and living at the dojo with Kaoru was always an amusing adventure.

In fact, he had even begun entertaining the notion that maybe, just maybe, if the gods were finally done playing with him, he could settle down now and live out his days in some kind of peace. He had even taken the first few cautious steps down that road after they had all returned from Kyoto after the defeat of Shishio. At Sano's insistence, he had slowly started to entrust a confidence or two, to experiment with being himself, whoever that was, and it had actually felt good.

Maybe the problem was wanderlust. Maybe, after a decade of being a rurouni, he just wasn't able to stay put in one place for this long, but that couldn't be it either. He knew himself well enough to know that, deep down, he had always wanted to sink roots—his time with Tomoe, if nothing else, had shown him that. It's just that events always seemed to conspire against it and he would find himself having to hit the road again, not because he wanted to, but because he had to.

"Kenshin?"

Kaoru's hushed whisper rose gently from the courtyard. She needn't have bothered—he had sensed her presence long before he could see her.

"Kenshin, are you there?" she called again, looking all around.

"Up here," he answered.

She looked up, then jumped to the top of rain barrel in an effort to join him. Kamiya Kasshin Ryu didn't rely much on jumps, but Kaoru had taken to working on them since her return from Enishi's island. She doubted she'd ever be able to make it to the roof in one leap like Kenshin, but from the rain barrel it was only a short distance. She made the second jump and landed lightly as Kenshin steadied her against the pitch of the roof. She had thought to throw a warm haori over her yukata, and she pulled it tightly around her as she joined him in sitting and staring out over the sleeping city below.

"Another nightmare?" Kenshin asked after they had sat awhile in silence.

She nodded her head and huddled even tighter into her haori, as if that could ward off the memory. "It was the one where Enishi cuts you down in mid-flight," she said in a tight voice, "and then he kills Yahiko, and you're bleeding to death, but first you kill Enishi and…"

She stopped as she heard him sigh. It wasn't the first time she had had this dream and not the first time she had told Kenshin about it, and every time he had the same reaction. His eyes would cloud over, then he'd put on the rurouni smile and say, "That didn't happen, and everyone's fine," and he would pat her hand reassuringly.

This time Kaoru mouthed the now familiar words right along with him, and at the sight of it, Kenshin smiled in spite of himself. Kaoru was so resilient in the face of such traumas; it was one of the things he admired most about her. He, on the other hand, couldn't shake off the feeling of guilt that always engulfed him whenever she had one of these dreams. After all, he had inadvertently brought the violence of his own past to her very doorstep, and she had nearly died because of it. A rational person would have demanded that he leave forever before anything else could happen, but Kaoru seemed to defy those conventions and seemed to truly want him to stay. It was a hard offer to refuse.

He felt her head come to rest on his shoulder, then heard her sigh. Clearly, something else was bothering her.

"Kenshin," she finally said, turning to look up at him, "it's not your fault, you know."

Kenshin was in the midst of enjoying how comfortable it felt to have Kaoru's head on his shoulder. He looked down at her lazily and asked, "What's not my fault?"

"That Enishi is such a psychopath," she said.

Kenshin moved so suddenly to look at her that Kaoru practically fell over. "You're kidding me, right?" he said when he had regained his composure. "I mean, the man saw me kill his sister! You don't think that would do it?"

He went back to staring out at the city again, all pretense of peace and serenity completely gone.

"Look at me," Kaoru said in exasperation, and she took his face in her hands to turn it back towards her. "All these years you've been blaming yourself for Tomoe's death, right? But think about it. Yes, Enishi saw you kill his sister, but he's the _only_ one of the two of you who saw how it actually happened. Don't you get it? You told me yourself! _You_ couldn't see her coming! You were nearly blind, nearly deaf, unable to sense ki—_you_ couldn't see that! But Enishi did, and what he saw was his sister running between you and your opponent as she tried to save you. He _knew_ you didn't purposely kill his sister because he _saw_! He's twisted, Kenshin, and I'm convinced he was twisted long before that ever happened!"

She had been staring hard into his eyes the entire time, and she suddenly realized that she was still holding his face in her hands. She blushed, dropped her hands, then turned her head in embarrassment. "Gomen," she said quickly, "sumimasen…"

She kicked herself—he was probably angry with her now. How stupid could she be, saying something like that to him!

Kenshin's eyes widened as what she said sank in. She was right, he realized. He himself had been unable to see Tomoe come running to put herself between him and his attacker—things would have been so different if he could have—and so he had always blamed himself for her death. It was Enishi, and only Enishi, who had actually seen things as they happened, but all this time Enishi had refused to accept the truth. And, Kenshin suddenly realized, so had he.

When had Kaoru become so wise, he wondered? She had changed so much these past seven months since he had come to live at the dojo. It was while recovering in Kyoto from his fight with Shishio that he had first noticed it, that she was no longer the somewhat clueless, impetuous girl he had saved from Hiruma Kihei and his impostor brother. No, she was more cautious now, more circumspect—more mature—and he liked her this way. He watched her now as she traced her finger along a line of new roofing tile, part of the extensive repairs made to the dojo to fix the destruction caused by Enishi's jinchuu. "It's a better roofing job than sessha could have done," he noted with a quiet laugh.

Kaoru looked up with relief in her eyes. Did this mean he wasn't angry at her for what she said? "Aa," she agreed, "the workmen did a great job." Then, at the thought that her statement might be taken as an insult, she added, "Not that you couldn't have done a great job, too!" A small chuckle from Kenshin reassured her that he hadn't taken offense.

It had been quite a surprise, actually, having workmen show up to do the repairs. It was only two days after they had returned from Enishi's island, and Kenshin was still recuperating from his wounds, when Kaoru opened the gate to find five carpenters with a wagonload of lumber and roofing tiles waiting to come in and start repairs. The letter they bore stated they were from the kabuki theater of the actor Saemonosuke VII, whom Kenshin had known during his wandering days as Ryosuke, and that the great Saemonosuke begged her indulgence to allow his carpenters to repair her dojo as a mark of his respect for "a great patriot and even greater actor," as the letter said. There were more people in this world than just her and their circle of friends who valued Kenshin, she thought. Now, if only he'd believe it….

"The city is so peaceful from up here, isn't it?" Kaoru said after another few moments. "No battles, no arguments, no worries…."

She shifted her gaze from the city to Kenshin and found him brooding as he stared out at the stars. "Is something wrong, Kenshin?" she asked.

He laughed gently. Kaoru didn't really know how to read ki, but she certainly could read his mind on occasion. "Nothing's wrong," he said as steadily as he could. "It's just that sessha is…well, just at loose ends right now."

Kaoru suddenly sat bolt upright, which nearly sent him flying off the roof. "Loose ends?" she repeated. She looked him straight in the eye. "You're _not_ thinking of leaving, are you?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that!" he laughed. Although actually, when he had gone to apologize to Chief Uramura for the injuries the chief had suffered during jinchuu, he had offered to leave Tokyo forever to spare the city any more destruction and turmoil on his account. "You can't do that!" the chief had blurted out. "Why, the government wouldn't know where to find you if…."

Kenshin hadn't let the chief finish his sentence. He knew what the man was getting at—the powers-that-be worried that after his victory over Shishio, the fearsome Hitokiri Battousai might snap like Shishio had and become a danger to themselves and the government. The funny thing was, Kenshin was sort of relieved they didn't want him to leave. It was then that he truly realized he didn't want to wander any longer. Kaoru, of course, knew nothing of this. He shrugged and smiled in an embarrassed way. "Maybe it's just that things have changed for this one, and that takes some getting used to."

"But nothing's changed!" Kaoru said quickly, a note of panic creeping into her voice. "Well, except that Sano and Megumi have left, and Yahiko's moved out, but that's only sort of because now that it's getting colder, he's been finding all sorts of reasons to sleep here at the dojo, and…."

Kenshin chuckled softly and grabbed her hands, which were gesticulating wildly. "It's not that—it's just sessha getting used to not being a rurouni anymore." But what not being a rurouni anymore meant, Kenshin wasn't quite sure.

"Oh. That." She quieted down until another thought struck her. With great trepidation, she said, "You're not unhappy here, are you?"

"Far from it," he said, although he still couldn't figure out why he felt so unsettled.

"Good," she said, her fears allayed for now. "Then let's go back inside. It's getting cold up here, and I've got to get some sleep. I've got three classes to teach tomorrow."

Kenshin reached out a hand to help her up, then continued to hold it as they took one last look at the peaceful city below. It was with great reluctance that he tore his eyes away from the view and helped Kaoru down before jumping down himself. The two made their way back to their rooms in companionable silence, then bade each other goodnight. It was a good feeling, a peaceful feeling that made life seem worth living. Now if only he could figure out why he couldn't enjoy it.

* * *

He awoke in the morning with the sun, which most people would have found sufficiently early, but for Kenshin this represented a failing. At this time of year, the sun was coming up fairly late, and by now he should already have been in the kitchen stoking the fire and cooking the rice. He quickly rolled over to get up but winced as he did. It was that damned wound across his stomach that Enishi had inflicted during the fight right before Kaoru's so-called death. Kenshin had lost massive amounts of blood from that wound—Megumi said it should have killed him—but instead of taking care of it properly, he had dragged himself off to Rakuninmura for two weeks and let it fester. Now, more than six weeks later, it was still causing him grief. Oh, well, that was the lot of a warrior, no use complaining about it.

He forced himself out of his futon and began folding things up. More worrisome than the nagging pain from this wound was the slowness with which his energy was returning. Megumi had explained that one, too, that he had lost so much blood in the fight with Shishio and then so soon after in the two fights with Enishi that his body never had time to replenish its reserves. Or maybe it was just old age, he thought ruefully. After all, he was pushing thirty.

Whatever the reason, it was really getting on his nerves. He was used to unlimited amounts of energy; he wasn't used to feeling so wiped out all the time. Not that he let anyone know—he did know how to put on a good act—but even he couldn't hide his getting up late all the time. He quickly changed into his kimono and hakama, tied back his hair, and rushed to the kitchen. Best not to let Kaoru know he had overslept again. He quickly lit the cooking fire, started soaking some rice in water left over from the previous night, then ran out to pick some vegetables from his garden, bypassing the outhouse as he did so. No time for that now.

The garden he had started on a whim, not long after returning from the battle with Shishio. Kaoru's mother had kept a flower garden in a corner of the dojo grounds, which had long ago become overgrown from neglect. With Kaoru's enthusiastic permission, he had turned it into a flourishing little vegetable garden full of fall crops of spinach, carrot, daikon, and peas, and he had found that tending it gave him great pleasure. It was pure luck that the destruction caused by Enishi and his henchmen had spared the little plot. He quickly cast an eye for offending weeds and bugs, then pulled up some spinach and a handful of peapods and sprinted back to the kitchen. Within twenty minutes, he had managed to get enough of breakfast going to make it look like he had been there twice as long. Kaoru would never know he had been late.

"Ohayo," Kenshin called out as he heard Kaoru nearing the kitchen. "Breakfast will be ready soon. It took a little longer than it should have to get the fire started, so things are a little behind…."

"It's okay that you overslept—we were out on the roof late last night, after all," Kaoru said with a smile. "You don't have to feel guilty about it."

Damn! How did she know? "No, really, sessha did have trouble with the fire…."

Kaoru chuckled. "You can't fool me, Himura Kenshin. I know your habits by now, and I know that on a normal morning, you don't exactly sprint right past the outhouse first thing without using it, and you usually spend some time weeding the garden before you pick anything, and I know that it usually takes you no time at all to get the fire going in the stove."

She walked over to stand next to him and started shelling the peas. Then, with a tiny smile tugging at her lips, she added, "You know, you could leave things to me for the few minutes it would take you to use the outhouse. Even I couldn't burn things that quickly."

Kenshin just stared at her. He knew she had a habit of watching him in the morning, but memorizing his every move? He had no idea. He felt his cheeks redden.

"Aa, perhaps sessha will take you up on that offer," he said quickly. Then, in as dignified a manner as he could manage, he left the kitchen to take care of some rather urgent business.

Kaoru watched as he left. Even after all these months, Kenshin was such a mystery to her. Not that she had that much experience with men, but her father had raised her like a boy, and she had spent most of her childhood around the boys and men at the dojo. In public, most of them followed the tradition of saying little and showing even less, but among themselves she knew they had lots to say and held very little back. It didn't take much, usually, to know what was going on in their minds.

Kenshin wasn't like that. Even in private he gave away very little, so that whenever he did say something, it was like receiving a precious gift. In fact, the most she had ever heard him say at one time was just a few weeks ago, when he recounted the story of his life as a hitokiri, and that was after knowing him for six months! So, what he had meant last night by being at loose ends or what his problem was with not being a rurouni anymore, she had no clue.

It worried her that recently, when she'd find him doing the laundry, sometimes she'd catch him staring off into space, and the look on his face she could only categorize as lost. She was convinced it had something to do with her, that somehow she wasn't enough company for him. Even worse, maybe he found her irritating and didn't want to be around her anymore but couldn't find a polite way to tell her. Not that it should matter to her since technically their relationship was just tenant and landlord, but look what happened when he left for Kyoto. It wasn't just that she had no tenant anymore that had reduced her to a whimpering blob of self-pity, and she was quite sure—okay, mostly quite sure—that it wasn't just hero worship that had led her to follow him to Kyoto. Anyway, she had come to feel a great responsibility for this man's happiness and well-being—sort of an obligation to the whole of Japan to take care of this savior of the nation. She didn't know what she'd do if it turned out that he just couldn't stand living with her at the dojo anymore….

Kenshin was back within minutes, and he gave her a sheepish smile before immersing himself in the details of chopping and cooking. He could tell Kaoru was worried about something, probably him, so he made sure to turn and flash her what he hoped would be a reassuring smile from time to time, but he wasn't sure it was working—she kept giving him furtive looks as she laid out mats and dishes for the meal.

"So," Kenshin said to deflect any questions as they sat down to eat, "you're teaching three classes today at Maekewa-dono's dojo?"

"Aa," Kaoru mumbled through a mouthful of rice. "His sons aren't happy about my teaching so many classes there, but Maekewa-sensei insists. I think it's because his students don't like his sons much. They're sort of pompous, you know?"

Kenshin chuckled. He had a feeling it might have more to do with the fact that the sons couldn't compete with a woman for the students' attention. She was good-looking, after all….

"Anyway," Kaoru continued, "you know what they're calling me now at the Maekewa dojo? Not just the Rose of Kenjutsu, but Sensei of Myojin the Cannon-slayer! I even hear that some of their students might be moving over here, now that Maekewa-sensei has made it official that his sons will be taking over."

"Ah, yes," Kenshin chuckled, "our 'cannon-slayer.' He _has_ had a bit of a swelled head since fighting Kujiranami, hasn't he." In fact, Kenshin had just spent the last several days dressing Yahiko down for some severe cases of disrespect to himself and the current assistant master—soon to be master—of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu.

She scowled. "Don't complain," she said. "I need to get some students at _this_ dojo, and I don't particularly care how I get them. If it takes putting up with Yahiko's foul mouth, then…" She stopped to reconsider, a wicked gleam in her eye. "I take that back. He can be as disrespectful as he wants as long as his reputation brings students over here _and_ he cleans the dojo floors every day _and_ does a thousand advanced swings _and_…."

"…and he's too tired to work at the Akabeko?"

"Oh," Kaoru said. They couldn't afford that. Tae gave Yahiko meals in addition to wages, meals he would otherwise eat at the dojo. She had received a nice sum from the government for her role in defeating the Juppongatana—actually, it was to replace what they had wanted to pay Kenshin for defeating Shishio, which he had refused to take—but what with all the mouths she had had to feed until recently, and the cost of repairs to the dojo from the fights with Saito and Enishi, and the lack of students, not to mention winter coming up, she had already used up a good deal of that money. Now she needed to make what little was left last well into spring. "Well, then, maybe not the thousand advanced swings…."

"Don't worry," Kenshin said. "Sessha may not have been able to work much while my shoulder was healing, but Oguni-sensei says it's all healed now, so sessha can look for a real job…."

"Kenshin, how are you ever going to recover fully if you keep knocking yourself out?" Kaoru broke in. "You were trying to work even before the sling came off, and all it's doing is tiring you out!"

Kenshin stiffened. They had had this discussion a million times before. Kaoru still did not understand how heavily it weighed on him that she was carrying the entire burden of earning enough money for them to live on. As a rurouni, it didn't matter—he could work to earn his keep, then move on. But now? Now he was settled, and his sense of honor and fairness dictated that he contribute something more than just doing the housework. So, as soon as he was able to move, he had insisted on working every odd job he could manage with one arm. "Sessha has always paid his own way, and this one has cost you much more than laundry and cooking can pay for," he said.

"But this your home now, remember?" Kaoru tried to suppress the panic that threatened to creep into her voice. "Anyway, _I _think you've more than paid for your upkeep with all the work you do around here. Why, you've done repairs, you've started that garden, you've…."

"If this is my home," Kenshin snapped, "then you must let me help cover this home's expenses!"

Kaoru suppressed a small gasp. Were those gold flecks she saw in his eyes? They disappeared as suddenly as they appeared, but it still made her shudder—it was a reminder of Kenshin's frightening ferocity in his battles with Enishi. "Okay, okay," she said in a small voice, "go ahead and work…."

Suddenly, a whirlwind that was Yahiko burst into the room. He took one look at Kenshin's glare and Kaoru's troubled expression and said, "Trouble in paradise?" Then he grabbed a bowl, filled it with rice, and began inhaling his food.

His sudden appearance startled Kaoru. Yahiko had not slept at the dojo that night, and she hadn't heard anyone ring the bell. "How did you get in here?" she demanded to know as she tried to grab the bowl away from Yahiko. "That gate's locked."

Yahiko downed the rest of the bowl of rice in two quick gulps, then grinned. "I jumped over the fence!" he proclaimed proudly. "I've been practicing jumps for my Hiten Mitsurugi homage moves, and now I can almost make it over the top without holding on!"

"Hiten Mitsurugi homage moves?" Kaoru screeched. "You're a student of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu, not Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu! What do you think you're doing?!" She looked over at Kenshin with alarm, only to find him smirking slightly. If she didn't know any better, she'd have sworn he looked somewhat proud. "Kenshin, say something!"

"You yourself have been practicing jumps," he said mildly, glad that the tension between them was broken.

"Yeah," said Yahiko as he stuffed another bowlful of rice in his mouth. "Anyway, it's not like he's ever gonna teach me the real thing." Then, as an afterthought, he added hopefully, "Unless you've changed your mind…."

Kenshin smiled and shook his head no.

Suddenly, Yahiko stopped eating, slapped his forehead, then reached into his sleeve to draw out an envelope. "I almost forgot!" he said as he handed it to Kenshin. "I ran into the Oguni Clinic's messenger on my way over here. He asked me to give you this."

"From Oguni-sensei?" Kaoru said. "I wonder what he wants. I thought you said you were basically all recovered now."

Kenshin tore the envelope open and scanned the letter. "Just a reminder to have my shoulder checked one more time," he said.

"Let me see that," Yahiko said as he swiped the letter from Kenshin's hand. "Yeah, so why does it say it's important? Things not healing well after all?" he added sarcastically as Kenshin grabbed the letter back.

"Kenshin?" Kaoru said when Kenshin just smiled in response.

"Sessha truly doesn't know what's so important," he finally answered. "This one can show you the wound—it really is all healed," and he started to pull down the top of his kimono.

"No, no, that's okay, I believe you," Kaoru said quickly. Not that she had never seen Kenshin's chest before, but for some reason, right now she felt a little embarrassed at the thought.

Suddenly, the bell at the gate started ringing. "Well," Kaoru said, glad for the diversion, "at least _someone_ knows how to use a bell! Listen, if you want that lesson before I leave this morning, you'd better go clean the dojo floor right now. I'll meet you as soon as I find out who this is and get changed." Then she was off.

"Aw, do I have to?" Yahiko whined, but it was a moot question. He shoveled another bowlful of rice into his mouth, then followed Kaoru out the door. Kenshin just smiled as he picked up the bowls and started cleaning up.

Twenty minutes later, Yahiko was back. "You seen Kaoru anywhere?"

Kenshin was just putting away the last of the clean dishes. "She's not with you?" he asked.

Yahiko rolled his eyes. "If she was with me, would I be in here asking you?"

Suddenly, Kenshin was on alert. When the bell had rung at the gate, he had, of course, cast out his senses to make sure no danger lurked there. And yes, Kaoru needed to change into her training clothes, but that normally didn't take more than five or ten minutes. He cast out his senses again; still no danger, but obviously something was amiss. In a flash, he was out the door and down the hallway leading to the training hall.

"I'll check the bathhouse," Yahiko called after him, then he took off as well.

Kenshin found her sitting at her father's desk in the dojo's office, her account books open before her along with row upon row of newly made calculations. She had been crying, he could tell, but the sense he got from her was one of defiance, not sadness. "Kaoru-dono?" he said tentatively.

Her head jerked up at the sudden sound of his voice, and she quickly wiped her eyes. "Oh," she said, trying to smile, "I didn't hear you come in." She looked down at the mess on the desk, then said, "I was just…checking the finances. You know, seeing how much money we have…nothing to worry about…," but then she dissolved again into tears.

Kenshin didn't know what to do. This was so unlike Kaoru, to break down and cry for seemingly no good reason. Usually when something got her upset, she just grabbed her bokken and beat whatever it was into submission. Obviously, the cause of her upset lay in the account books, so at the risk of ending up on the receiving end of said bokken, he sat down beside her and started looking at the books and her calculations. He wasn't the quickest at numbers, but he had learned a little something of how to keep accounts from an elderly shopkeeper who had taken him in several years ago.

"That was the tax collector at the gate," Kaoru finally said in a strangled voice as she watched Kenshin scan the figures. "Taxes—who thinks about taxes? All I've been worried about was making sure we had enough money to pay for food and upkeep. I mean, I had no idea how much this dojo is actually worth—it'll take all my savings plus all the money I've earned this month to cover it."

From his quick glance at the account books and the bill left by the tax collector, it was clear to Kenshin that Kaoru had good reason to be worried.

"But this man, this horrible, horrible man!" she continued, her anger starting to build. "I asked if I could have some time to pay, but no! He says my father always paid in full on this day every year, and he expected me to do the same! When I told him my father died in the war last year, he just said I should get married to solve the problem! And when I said that wasn't going to happen anytime soon, he told me I could either pay up now or he'd force me to marry his son to settle the debt!" She dissolved into tears again. Then, in the most pitiful voice he had ever heard from her, she said, "Kenshin, what do I do?"

"Well," he said slowly, "you do have just enough to pay the bill…"

"But then we barely have enough money for food and none for firewood, and winter's almost here," she pointed out tearfully.

"Well," Kenshin started to say, but Kaoru cut him off, flames shooting from her eyes.

"If you're going to say I should marry that guy's son, well, you can just forget the whole thing, mister! I'm _never_ getting married! You know what happens if I get married? I lose everything! I become the property of my husband and his family, like some kind of horse, and everything I own becomes theirs, too, including this dojo! Oh, no, I will _never_ give up my father's legacy—_never_!" Then she buried her head in Kenshin's chest and dissolved into tears again.

Kenshin was not prepared for this, and it took him several seconds before he finally wrapped his arms around her. It was somewhat disconcerting to feel her cry against him in great heaves. He felt quite helpless—this was not something he knew how to deal with. "What about your father's family?" he finally asked.

Kaoru pushed away and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "There is no family," she managed to say. "My father said they disowned him for marrying my mother. It was just me and him against the world, he used to say. Now it's just me," and she returned to sobbing into Kenshin's chest.

He found himself stroking her hair and rubbing her back in an attempt to calm her, but really, what could he do? Women were expected to be married off as part of often complex business arrangements, and the woman usually had little or no say in the matter. Even the poorest families got something from the deal, even if it was only that the woman's family had one less mouth to feed and the husband's family gained one free worker.

Love, of course, had nothing to do with it, which was a problem for him, for he suspected, though he could not be totally sure, that he loved Kaoru. At the very least, he knew he cared a lot for her. After all, hadn't she become his reason to live? But what could he offer her in return? He was penniless, a wanderer whose only skill was not only passe in the new era, but which he would have refused to use or teach even if it weren't passe. He knew that maintaining this dojo required much, much more than what Kaoru alone could bring in as an itinerant teacher, and despite her protestations, he was sure that no matter how much cooking or cleaning or laundry he did, it could never fully repay the cost of putting him up. So, marriage? There was absolutely nothing he could bring to such an arrangement. Once again, he felt helpless.

Suddenly, Yahiko burst in, and at the sight of Kaoru in Kenshin's arms, he cried out, "Ewwwww!"

Through her tears, Kaoru blushed and pushed herself out of Kenshin's embrace, glaring at Yahiko as she tried to dry her tears.

"Yahiko," Kenshin said as calmly as he could, "it would be more appropriate for you to ask what's wrong, then make a quick exit."

"No, it's okay," Kaoru sniffled. Turning to Yahiko, she said, "The tax collector came, I owe a lot of money I don't have, and I might end up losing the dojo, that's all."

"Tax collector? Lose the dojo?!" Yahiko was stunned. Then, suddenly, he pulled out his shinai and yelled, "Okay, where is he? Let me at him! I'll teach him a thing or two, or my name isn't Myojin the Cannon-Slayer!"

Suddenly, Yahiko found that his shinai was no longer in his own hands but in Kenshin's. "Hey, give that back...!" he started, but there was something about Kenshin's eyes that made him shut up.

"Never, ever are you to talk like that," Kenshin growled out in a warning voice. "The sword is never to be used that way!"

The voice sent shivers down Yahiko's back, but he shook it off and tried to grab back his shinai. "Like I should listen to you," he taunted Kenshin. "Who was it, after all, who held this place together while you sat and felt sorry for yourself in Rakuninmura, huh? Why, if it hadn't been for me…!"

Suddenly, Yahiko felt himself pinned against the wall by a gust of cold wind, though it was like no wind he had ever felt before, and he found himself staring into two cold eyes whose very look promised death or worse if he even so much as dared to move. Kaoru felt it, too, and she backed away.

Yahiko tried to break loose, but he felt paralyzed. He had never seen Kenshin like this outside of battle, and it scared the crap out of him. "O…kay," Yahiko managed to say, "maybe I was a little out of line. I apologize."

The force that had pinned him lessened. Kenshin turned away, tossing the shinai back as he said, "Go practice the transition from the tenth to the eleventh move in the fifth kata while you're waiting for Kaoru-dono."

"Wait a minute—Kaoru's my instructor, not you…," Yahiko started to say, but Kenshin continued as if he hadn't said a word.

"In moving from the backhand to the overhead swing, you leave yourself vulnerable on the left side." When Yahiko seemed disinclined to move, Kenshin growled, "Just go do it—now."

Once again Yahiko was stunned. Kenshin had been watching him that closely during practice? He forced himself to pull his eyes away from Kenshin and took off. Kaoru watched him go, then said shakily, "You shouldn't have been so rough on him. You've really scared him." And me, too, she thought to herself.

Kenshin took a deep breath. What had gotten into him, scaring Yahiko and Kaoru like that? But Yahiko was too young to possess as much skill as he did with a sword, and that, as Kenshin knew all too well, was a dangerous thing. There was a reason he hadn't wanted Kaoru to teach the ougi to Yahiko so soon.

"Sessha will apologize," Kenshin said, "but only for scaring him." As for that crack about Rakuninmura, he thought bleakly, clearly he needed to have a little chat with the boy.

Kaoru relaxed slightly now, but it made her uncomfortable that just when she thought she knew everything there was to know about Kenshin's moods, he'd go do something like this that would scare her. Yet right now he didn't look scary, just—how did he describe it last night? At loose ends? She shook herself ever so slightly, then looked back at her account books and said, "So, what now? What do I do?"

Kenshin sighed. Kaoru was trying to act as if nothing had happened, but he could tell she was shaken by his outburst at Yahiko.

"There can be no argument now about my finding work," he said finally. "What you earn from teaching at the Maekewa dojo will at least keep us in food. I can at least try to earn enough for firewood. Today sessha was planning to go to that labor exchange where Sano used to hang out—maybe sessha can find some work there. And maybe Yahiko could pay you a little something for his lessons from his earnings at the Akabeko. Somehow, sessha's sure we'll make it through until spring. Maybe by then you'll have real students, and this one can plant enough in the vegetable garden to sell at the market, and…."

Kaoru ran over and hugged him. "Oh, Kenshin, thank you, thank you, thank you!" she cried as tears started to fall again. Her fear over his outburst was all but forgotten.

He blushed, then gently broke her embrace. "It's getting late," he said. "If sessha doesn't leave now, this one will have no chance at the labor exchange. Go practice with Yahiko, then find the tax collector and give him his money. We'll find a way to make this work."

She wiped her nose again, then headed for the training hall and Yahiko. Within minutes, Kenshin heard the sounds of bokken against bokken and cries of "Busu!" and "Brat!" Life was back to normal, but the weight of life as a settled man seemed even heavier than before.

**

* * *

Japanese Words:**

Haori: A lightweight coat worn over kimono.

Yukata: light summer-weight kimono.

Gomen, sumimasen: both are ways to say "I'm sorry," "forgive me."

Rakuninmura: Those of you who are used to Maigo-chan's superlative manga translations will recognize this. It's the Japanese word for what the translated manga calls the Fallen Village.

Cannon-slayer: Not Japanese, I know, but this is the place to note that during jinchuu, Yahiko fought Kujiranami, whose one arm had been replaced with an Armstrong cannon. Hence, "Cannon-slayer." (And yes, Yahiko didn't actually kill him, but he is a bit of a boaster, ne?)

Ougi: the succession technique of a sword style.

**Author's Note**: Every action has a reaction, and that's what this story is about. Kenshin has ended his wandering days by settling at the dojo. The reaction? Now he's got to worry about how to pay the bills. He ran off to Rakuninmura? Yahiko's unthinking hero worship is gone. He unleashed the ferocity of the Battousai to defeat Enishi? Not even in the fight with Saito had Kaoru ever seen him this way, and it scared her. No wonder the poor guy feels at loose ends! But don't despair, he will find his way, and the journey will include some good, old-fashioned sword-rattling, both literal and figurative.

Many thanks go to 'older woman,' author of the superlative Ichirizuka, for convincing me to post this story. The idea actually rattled around in my mind for two years and I was about to give up because I kept running into severe conceptual problems. Then older woman asked if I was writing anything new, I sent her a little of the story, and she convinced me to forge ahead. So, I guess if you don't like what you see, you can blame her (only kidding)!!

If you're wondering where Co-Conspirator is, she was the one who planted the idea for this story, but she is currently deep into other manga right now ("RK will always be my first love, though," she says). She sends her regards.


	2. Chapter 2

Kaoru's forced to give over all her savings to the tax collector, Yahiko is taunting Kenshin about his stay in Rakuninmura, and Kenshin needs to find work that pays a decent wage. Living as a settled man is turning out to be much more difficult than he expected.

All hail Watsuki Nobuhiro, creator of the RK universe! And I suppose I should acknowledge all the mega-conglomerates who hold all the rest of the copyrights, since they're the ones who published and animated everything for us. They are the copyright holders, not me (alas).

**Learning to Live Again**

**By**

**Conspirator**

**Chapter 2**

It was nearly 8 a.m. by the time Kenshin left the dojo. He had often seen day laborers at work much earlier than this, and he worried that he would be too late to find any work at all at the labor exchange. On top of that, he didn't exactly know where this labor exchange was, only that it wasn't far from Sano's row house.

So, he did the only thing he could do—he headed for the row house, weaving in and out of the crowds in the streets as fast as he could. He felt a bit strange as he walked, for he had left the sakabatou back at the dojo. Rarely had he ventured into town without it, but after all, who would hire someone wearing a banned sword?

It didn't take him long to reach the row house, but from there he wasn't sure where to go. He followed the narrow alley to its end, then stopped to look, listen, and cast out his senses in the hope it would give him some clue.

"Hey," someone shouted out to him, "aren't you Sagara Sanosuke's friend, the swordsman?"

Kenshin looked around and saw a wiry little man he recognized from one of the few times Sano had convinced him to go out drinking with him. "Aa," Kenshin answered. "Matahachi-san, isn't it?"

The man beamed as he nodded his head. "The very one! And what might you be doing around here this early in the morning? Certainly not looking for Sagara-kun!"

"Actually, sessha was hoping to find the labor exchange Sano told me about."

"Labor exchange, eh?" The man laughed. "I never figured the words 'Sagara' and 'labor' went together, if you know what I mean. Why, he hasn't shown up at all in weeks—not even at his apartment! How he manages to charm folks into giving him room and board I'll never know! But come on, I'm on my way there myself," and he plopped an arm around Kenshin's shoulders to shepherd him on the way.

"So tell me, who's Sagara-kun shacking up with these days? That's the reason he ain't been around, right?"

Kenshin coughed. Shacking up? The man made it sound like Sano made a living servicing women or something! "He left the country two weeks ago," Kenshin said pointedly.

Matahachi stopped and scratched his head as if he didn't understand. "Left the country? Oh, you mean he left _for_ the country! Why, that bastard—he owes me money!"

"No," Kenshin said, "he left Japan. Trouble with the police," he added.

"No shit!" the man said slowly as comprehension sank in. Sano's reputation obviously was going up a few notches in this man's estimation. "Well, well, well!"

By this time, they had arrived at an empty lot in a warehouse district where several dozen men were milling around a rough sign that read "Day Laborers." Matahachi hustled him over to a small knot of men who loudly shouted raunchy greetings to them.

"I missed anything yet?" Matahachi asked his friends.

"Not unless you fancied a bit of ditch-digging," one of them answered with a laugh.

Matahachi plopped himself down on a small patch of grass. "Ditch-digging? Nah, that's work! I'm waiting for that guy who does the landscaping." He started waving his hands around like a lunatic and said in a high falsetto, "Oh, Matahachi, put that bush right _there_! Oh, Juntaro, don't walk on that _azalea_! Oh, _dear_—why, you fellows are just too _much_!"

His friends were so busy cracking up at the act that they barely noticed Kenshin until a foreman showed up to do some hiring.

"Five guys for roofing!" the man barked out.

None of Matahachi's friends moved, but they watched attentively as Kenshin stood up. He had done some roofing in his day, and so as men stepped forward to be chosen, he did too. The foreman, however, gave him a withering look and took five others. Matahachi's friends sniggered.

Shortly thereafter, another foreman came looking for seven men to unload crates at a warehouse. This was work that took no training at all, and so Kenshin presented himself once again. Once again, the foreman took anyone but him. Oh well, the day was still young, all was not lost, Kenshin thought as he returned to Matahachi and his friends, who were sniggering once again.

"Listen," Matahachi said to him as he sat down, "those jobs are worthless—they pay maybe 10 sen for a day of backbreaking labor. Wait until the landscaper comes—he pays 20 and the work's not hard. But first you gotta change the way you're dressed. No one's gonna hire you looking like that."

Kenshin looked down at his clothes. They were threadbare, yes, but at least they were clean. "What's wrong with this? he asked innocently.

"Hey, fellas!" Matahachi called out. "Sagara-kun's friend here wants to know what's wrong with the way he's dressed!"

The men burst out laughing as if this were the most obvious thing in the world, and they laughed even more at Kenshin's look of wide-eyed ignorance.

"Listen—what's your name again? Himura? Look at us. What are we wearing? Monpei, jinbei—why Juntaro-kun's just wearing a fundoshi with his kosode, not some hoity-toity hakama! And tabi? Only for the high-class! Hell, no one's gonna hire you if you look like some poor former samurai. Why, those bums are even lazier than _we_ are!" And at that, the men laughing uproariously.

"But sessha wasn't born a samurai…."

He didn't have time to finish, for with one bellowed "C'mon, boys!," Matahachi and his friends piled on top of Kenshin, burying him in a cloud of flying hands and cloth. When Kenshin finally came up for air, he found his hakama hiked up around his knees, his sleeves tied back, and his head covered with a cloth tied in a knot at each temple. His zori were on his feet, but his tabi were now in Matahachi's hands, being held at arm's length as if they were some sort of offensive rodents. Matahachi dropped them unceremoniously in front of Kenshin, then stood back to admire his handiwork.

"Not bad, boys, not bad," he said admiringly. "Why, you'd hardly know he wasn't wearing farmer's clothes!"

Suddenly, the men were slapping Kenshin on the back and welcoming him into their ranks with open arms. He found himself rather astonished by the whole affair. Quite frankly, what he wore had never mattered much to him, and so it never occurred to him that it could matter so much in getting a job. He smiled sheepishly, shrugged his shoulders, and joined them once again to await another foreman.

It wasn't long before a man came prancing up to the sign and announced in a high falsetto, "Oh, _boys_, anyone up for some landscaping today?"

It could be none other than the man Matahachi had lampooned earlier. The group shot over to the sign, sweeping Kenshin along with them. The foreman counted them out, gave a leer at Kenshin, then said to Matahachi, "And who's _this_ extra little fellow?"

"A good friend!" Matahachi bragged. "Why, he's known as the best shrub planter in the whole of the Kanto region!"

"Hmm," said the foreman as he slowly circled Kenshin. Kenshin stilled himself as he felt the man's eyes roaming his body. He knew what this was about. Being so short and looking so young, he had encountered this type all too often in his life. Normally, he'd back the man off with a warning glare, but he needed this job….

"Yeeesss," the man drawled, "he'll do quite nicely. Okay, because you're new, 15 sen for the day, but if you're as good as I think," and he dropped his voice to a sultry whisper, "I'll make it 25."

Kenshin said nothing, but just followed the men as they left the labor exchange. He'd straighten out the landscaper later. The prospect of 15 sen was too good to pass up.

"So where are we going?" he asked Matahachi as they started following the foreman into the city.

"A big, fancy estate on the edge of town," Matahachi replied. "Owned by the Akita clan, used to be a big daimyo family up north. They sure have the money, those aristocrats."

Kenshin stopped. The Akita clan? He couldn't go there! The Akita had been supporters of the Bakufu during the revolution, and one of his many black envelopes had been for the eldest son of this family. It suddenly occurred to him that all the daimyo, save one or two, had been forcibly relocated to Tokyo nearly ten years ago, and several of those families would legitimately have an undying desire for revenge against the former Hitokiri Battousai. Even though his hair was now hidden under a rag, if the wrong person at this estate were to catch sight of the cross-shaped scar…. He had just spent the past ten years trying to avoid places where such encounters could occur; he wasn't about to change that now.

"What's the matter, Himura? Come on, catch up!"

"No," Kenshin said. "This one's suddenly realized…sessha can't take this job!" And he quickly turned back to the labor exchange.

By now it was mid-morning, late enough that only a handful of men were loitering around the sign. He sat down dejectedly and started mentally ticking off the location of various inns and hotels where he might try to beg a job washing dishes or doing laundry. Even one sen was better than nothing, he figured. Then, just as he was about to get up and leave, an elderly lady came, took one look at him, then said, "You there—boy! I need you at our tatami factory. Five sen if you can clean all the rice stuck to the empty bags."

"Sessha?" Kenshin asked in an astonished voice. He looked around. There was no one else in the vicinity.

The old woman kicked his shin. "Well, of course you, you twit!" Under her breath, she added, "Boys these days, I swear they have no brains." Then to Kenshin she said imperiously, "Get up right now and come with me!"

Kenshin did as he was told. He bowed formally to the woman, then fell into step with her as she led the way to her business. "Idiots, that's what boys are nowadays," he could hear her mutter. "Nothing more than clods of dirt, nothing between the ears…."

After about ten minutes, they arrived at a small building that housed the tatami factory. In the outer room were seven men busily sewing finished tatami mats, obviously the most talented and highest-paid workers. In the next room were another ten men working at the looms used to make the outer fabric of the tatami. The constant clack of the shuttles flying back and forth sounded like so many monster crickets to his ear. Then, way in the back, were six boys picking grains of rice from the empty rice bags that were destined to become the padding for the new tatami mats. One huge stack of bags sat unattended.

"You!" the old lady said gruffly as she grabbed Kenshin by the arm. "Over there. You get every speck of rice off all those bags by the end of the day and you'll get the five sen. If you don't finish by the end of the day, then you can stay all night. And don't you go slicing your finger off with the knife, like that last fool did this morning! Ruined a perfectly good bag with his worthless blood, he did!" And she swung him around, practically throwing him over to the pile of bags. Then she walked away, muttering, "Goddamn fool boys…."

Kenshin looked at the pile of bags. He had never done this kind of work before, but it seemed pretty straightforward—open a bag inside out, take a scraper knife and scrape any stray grains of rice into the bowl in front of him. How anyone could slice a finger off with one of these was beyond him, but who was he to argue? Whatever had happened to the poor soul who had been there before him, it had at least given him the chance to earn something, even if it was only five sen.

And so he set to work. He soon learned that rice had a tendency to work its way into the weave of the rough bags and that sometimes it took using his fingers to pick the grains out, but he soon developed a rhythm to the work and found he was able to clean several bags in an hour. The other boys working with him, who were all around thirteen or fourteen, looked at him but didn't talk much other than to ask his name and tell him that, in their opinion, the old woman was a witch. He didn't doubt their judgment; he was just glad he wasn't apprenticed to this shop forever, as they probably were.

And so the rest of the morning passed, as did a short lunch break. By mid-afternoon, he had almost finished the entire pile of sacks and he was looking forward to going home when the old woman reappeared to take stock of how much work had been done. She cuffed one boy on the head for being too slow, boxed another's ears for accidentally slicing a hole in a bag, cursed the rest of them out, then stopped in front of Kenshin. He tensed, waiting for some curse or blow, but one never came. Then she left as suddenly as she had appeared. "You lucky dog," one of the boys muttered.

But within minutes she was back, this time accompanied by a middle-aged man. From the deference she gave him, Kenshin guessed the man was the factory owner. It had nothing to do with him, so he ignored their presence, as did the other boys, and he kept on working until the two of them stopped in front of him.

"You see?" the woman crowed. "I found you a good one this time! Look how much he's done already! This one's a keeper!"

The man nodded his head, then ran his hand through the bowl of rice that had been scraped from Kenshin's bags. By now, there was nearly enough to fill a tiny rice bag of its own. Then he said, "Boy, how would you like to work for me permanently?"

Kenshin looked up. A permanent job was what he needed, but for only five sen a day? He needed more than that to help Kaoru keep the dojo. He was about to answer when the man's ki suddenly spiked.

"Wait a minute," the man said. He walked around Kenshin until he was staring at the cross-shaped scar. Then he suddenly grabbed the rag from Kenshin's head, allowing his red hair to spill out.

"You idiot woman!" the man yelled. "Do you know what you've done? Do you know who this is? You! You're no boy—you're that Battousai character! The one that brought all that destruction to that neighborhood north of here!"

"B-B-Battousai? But, Iijima-sama, how could I know…?" the woman began stuttering.

The man grabbed Kenshin by the neck of his kimono and hauled him up. "Out!" he shouted in a panic. "Out now, and don't let anyone see you leave!" He started pushing Kenshin towards the door. "No way I'm having myself associated with you! I can't afford to have some enemy of yours come destroying my shop just because of you! Here—take this!" and he shoved five sen into Kenshin's hands. "No, wait, take another five, another ten!" he cried, pushing the coins into Kenshin's hands. "And here, take this rice—take anything you want! Just get out of my shop!"

The man quickly poured the rice from the bowl into an empty sack, threw it at Kenshin, and pushed him out the door. "And don't ever let anyone know you've had anything to do with me!" he called after him.

The door slammed unceremoniously behind him, leaving him alone in a smelly back alley. Well, that didn't bode well for getting future jobs in town, he thought, but he couldn't exactly blame the guy for throwing him out. After all, even he had to admit that hiring him did have its own dangers. Normally, it wouldn't bother him—he'd just collect his things and wander somewhere else—but he had promised Kaoru that his wandering days were over. So, he brushed himself off, stashed the coins safely in his chest pouch, and headed back to the dojo. After all, what else could he do? It was too late to look for other work now, and he could ponder this latest turn of events later, probably tonight while sitting sleepless on the roof again .

Kaoru was already home when he arrived, and she marveled at the bag of rice and twenty sen. "This should come in handy, now that we have no money left," she said as she fingered the coins. "And Yahiko said something this morning about how cold and leaky the row house is. I have a feeling we'll be putting him up here from now on, which means we'll need even more firewood and food." Then she stroked the bag of rice and said wistfully, "This isn't by any chance a permanent job, is it?"

Kenshin winced. "Um, not exactly," he said.

There was something in the way he said it that made Kaoru turn a piercing gaze upon him. "Wait a minute," she said. "What kind of job pays twenty sen _and_ a bag of rice? You didn't do something foolish, did you? Like go gambling or something?"

Actually, Kenshin thought, of all the choices she could have come up with, that probably was the least foolish, but how could she know he never lost at dice? He couldn't lie about what happened, however. After all, she had been honest with him about the state of her finances.

"No, nothing like that," Kenshin said. "It was a job at a tatami maker, combing the last bits of rice out of the bags they use for padding. They let me keep what was scraped out, and they even wanted to keep me on, except, well, when the owner came by after lunch to check up on us, he recognized me as the one responsible for Enishi's attacks. He was afraid that if sessha continued to work there, another Enishi might show up and destroy his business, too, so…."

Kaoru let out a tiny "Oh," but before she could say anything further, Kenshin deftly changed the subject before Kaoru could start trying to make him feel better about it. "So," he said, "you found the tax collector and paid him?"

Kaoru suddenly clenched her fists. "Did I find him? Oh, yeah, I found him alright. I went and knocked on his gate, and when he saw it was me, he didn't even say hello, he just assumed I came to marry his son! Can you believe it? Then when I said, 'No, here's the money,' he started cursing at me! Then he grabbed the bag, threw it on the ground and tried to slam the gate in my face. Well, the nerve, I thought! So before he could lock it, I kicked the gate open again and said, "I've paid my tax, now I want a receipt," and then he _really_ started cursing!"

In his mind's eye, Kenshin saw a vision of a whirling Kaoru violently kicking in the man's gate. He chuckled.

"And then," she continued, "I told him, 'You'd better give me that receipt or I'm going straight to Police Chief Uramura to report you!'"

"Kaoru-dono!" Kenshin started to admonish, but she cut him off.

"I know, I know, you don't believe in name-dropping, but if ever there was a situation that called for it, this was it! So when he laughed in my face, I went one step further and said, 'And I'm a personal friend of Police Officer Fujita Goro, too!'"

"You brought up Saitoh?" Kenshin gasped. This woman had guts!

"You'd better believe it, and good thing I did, too, because just the mention of his name and in a flash I had a receipt! He was actually trembling when he gave it to me! He didn't put an official seal on it, but it's a receipt nonetheless!"

"Aku, soku, zan," Kenshin said softly, a tiny smile hovering on his lips.

"You bet!" Kaoru said triumphantly. "Still, it's awfully strange the way the guy acted when I tried to pay him, but who cares? It's done, and he can't ever take the dojo away from me. Now we just have to figure out how we're going to make it through the winter. It's sort of scary knowing that we're totally broke," and she fingered the coins once more.

"Don't worry, we'll manage," Kenshin said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. "Anyway, we still have a little bit of money and some free rice, and when Yahiko comes later for his sparring session, you can ask if he can pay a little something for his lessons."

But Yahiko didn't show up for his sparring session, not even for dinner, and as the evening wore on, Kaoru started to worry. She knew the boy had been upset about his argument with Kenshin that morning, but she didn't think he'd be so upset that he'd want to stay in the drafty row house tonight. After all, it was getting pretty cold out. In fact, Kenshin was out in his garden hurriedly cutting the last of the flowers and harvesting all but the hardiest crops for fear there would be a heavy frost.

Yahiko finally showed up close to 10. Kenshin had no doubt he'd finally come, but it was much later than even he expected. Oh well, considering what had happened that morning, the boy had probably tried as hard as he could to stay away. He watched unseen from the training hall as Kaoru let the boy in. Yahiko probably wanted no part of him right now. No matter—they needed to talk. He could not let Yahiko's taunt about Rakuninmura stand. And so, as soon as Yahiko had settled into his old room, Kenshin knocked on his shoji.

"Go away," Yahiko growled as he saw whose shadow was on the screen.

Kenshin slid the shoji open anyway. "We need to talk—man to man," he said.

"As if you ever treated me like a man before," Yahiko scowled, not even bothering to look at Kenshin. He waited to be pinned to the wall for his insolence, just as he had been that morning, but nothing happened.

After several moments of silence, he finally turned to look at the man he had looked up to for so long but who now seemed to him like an utter stranger. What had gotten into Kenshin this morning anyway? It wasn't like him to turn on someone so quickly…. But Kenshin was just standing there, a serious expression on his face, yes, but no amber in his eyes, no hint of a killing ki, nothing…fearsome.

Yahiko sighed and motioned for him to come in. "Whaddya want," he said sullenly, then watched in surprise as Kenshin went to sit formally in the middle of the room as if he had come to meet a dignitary. Yahiko tried to ignore him, but Kenshin just kept sitting there, patiently waiting for him. Finally, Yahiko spun around on his heel and unceremoniously plopped himself down. It's not like the man deserved his respect or anything, after all.

"Yahiko," Kenshin started, taking in the boy's angry glare, "what sessha did this morning was unforgivable. Sessha apologizes."

"Yeah, like you really mean it," Yahiko snapped back. "You and all your fancy talk about protecting the weak from injustice and wielding the sword only for good—I try to do that for Kaoru and look what happens. You make me sick." He made to get up again, but Kenshin said, "Yahiko…"

Yahiko sat back down to give him another sullen stare but found that Kenshin was now looking down at his hands, his eyes hidden behind his bangs. What now, Yahiko thought angrily, was the guy going to grovel at his feet or something? His respect for Kenshin was oozing away faster and faster.

Finally Kenshin looked up and said, "You, above all, deserve to know what made me give up all hope—what made me go to Rakuninmura—when sessha thought Kaoru had died during Enishi's jinchuu. It has to do with the way of the sword, or at least what this one grew up thinking was the way of the sword. It's something only another man can understand."

Yahiko snorted at that, but he didn't move. Kenshin took that as an assent to continue.

"You have been in battle now more times than this one had ever been at your age. You understand what it means to put one's life and one's convictions on the edge of one's blade—on the very edge between life and death. That is what it means to live the way of the sword."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard all that before," Yahiko said impatiently. "So what?"

"Yahiko, what if everything you thought you believed was proved to be a lie in front of your eyes? If your belief that your sword could protect those you cared about turned out to be nothing more than a dangerous delusion? If you thought that delusion had actually led to the death of someone close to you…."

He stopped, unable to continue and somewhat surprised that there was no retort from Yahiko. Then, his fingers tensed and digging into his knees, he pulled himself together and said, "Once before, someone close to me died because of this delusion. To have it seemingly happen again, after all these years of trying to atone—there seemed to be nothing left for me. It was as if the gods were saying that my entire life had been one big mistake and there was no way to correct it…. Although," he mused, throwing away the belittling 'sessha' he had used for so many years, "even then I couldn't quite give up my sword, could I," and he remembered how he had chained the sakabatou to himself, for what reason he still wasn't sure.

"But Misao and I came to get you, and you just ignored us!" Yahiko said accusingly.

Kenshin fixed him with a look Yahiko had never seen before. "And what would you do," Kenshin asked, his eyes boring into Yahiko's, "if you thought just the mere fact of your return to the world—not any battles, nothing else, just your mere return—would mean that others would die? Would you do it?"

"But that's where we're different!" Yahiko countered with all the bravado of an 11-year-old. "I'd fight all those bastards and take them out first! But you—you wouldn't even try!"

"And that's exactly the mistake I made when I left my shishou when I was 13," Kenshin countered. "Like you, I thought my sword alone could take out all those bastards, as you put it, and just like that, the world would be a better place. But it was just that—a mistake! One man's sword can never change the world all by itself! I've been paying for that mistake ever since. It was only the realization that harm would come to those I care about if I _didn't_ return to the world—when Tsubame told me you were trying to battle Kujiranami all by yourself—that broke the chains that held me back.

"Listen to me, Yahiko. You have wanted all this time to learn Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu and I have always told you no. I haven't been entirely truthful with you."

"What?!" Yahiko suddenly sat bolt upright. Was Kenshin changing his mind about teaching him? It felt like a bribe, but it was one he wouldn't hesitate to take. Except, he thought, there must be some catch… "What do you mean you haven't been entirely truthful with me?"

Kenshin took a deep breath. It was so rare that he revealed this much about himself, and what he was about to say he had never told anyone else.

"You know full well that there is more to swordsmanship than just physically wielding a sword," he continued. "To truly use any sword style to its greatest effect, one must not just master the moves, but understand its teachings and live them as well. You know why I will not teach you the kata of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, but all these months, especially since our return from Kyoto, I have been passing on to you the philosophy of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"No," Yahiko answered truthfully, for he was not sure he could believe what he was hearing.

"I mean that you are already living some of its teachings. It's what made me able to entrust to you the battle against Enishi's henchman at the dojo, what gave you the heart to take on a fiend like Kujiranami. And yet, like I was, you are still too young to understand the responsibility that comes with wielding the enormous power you have. To have mastered the ougi of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu at such a young age—you know I was against Kaoru-dono teaching it to you, despite the danger we all faced. It's because, in the wrong hands, an ougi can become like a fire out of control—in the blink of an eye it can destroy everything in its path! It must be tempered by wisdom, and wisdom can only come with age. And so I must continue to teach you the philosophy of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu so that you, unlike me, can learn its ultimate lesson before you do something you will regret for the rest of your life."

Yahiko was now sitting with a stunned expression on his face. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had already absorbed some of the teachings of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu? "Wh…what's the ultimate lesson?" he barely managed to ask.

Kenshin paused and looked down at his hands, the hands that had killed so many, the hands that had brought him such triumph and despair, the hands that had failed to learn that lesson soon enough. He finally looked up and said, "You know from what I've told you that Hiko Seijuro had only one student—me. That isn't just because he's some snarly, ill-tempered old hermit—it's because Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu is so dangerous that there can be only one master at a time, and that master can have only one student…"

"But you mastered the ougi," Yahiko broke in, "so there are two masters right now, and it's not like the two of you are gonna go cutting up the whole country…."

Kenshin held up his hand to silence him. "When I left Hiko to join the revolution, I thought all that was left to learn was the ougi. I thought that was the ultimate lesson. I was wrong. The ultimate lesson is taught _through_ the ougi. If I had learned that ultimate lesson before I left…" He snorted in disgust. "But I was like you—too cocky, too full of myself!" He stopped as he saw in his mind's eye the prostrate form of Hiko Seijuro after the Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki, and he shuddered as he remembered his horror at thinking he had killed him.

Now his voice hardened. "So let me tell you how the ougi of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu is passed from master to student—something I couldn't have known when I left. We both use real swords. The student is taught an attack that is so fast and so devastating that there is no hope of blocking or defense—unless a swordsman with beyond-godlike speed can execute an even faster move that is so dangerous that even to attempt it would kill most who would try it. It is this last move that is the ougi, and the student is ordered to use it against his master."

A heavy silence descended as Yahiko stared at Kenshin. "But…wouldn't that…kill the master?" Yahiko stuttered in disbelief.

"That is the ultimate lesson," Kenshin continued. "To have lived with one's shishou for so long, to build up such a relationship of respect, if not reverence…. But, of course, the student knows nothing of this when the master commands him to begin! Every other lesson, every other move—they've all been done with no mortal harm to anyone! And so why would this be different? Until the student sees the result….

"The ultimate lesson, then, is the value of a life. To find one's shishou dead on the ground from one's own blade—only then does one truly understand what it means to kill, what it really means to wield the sword!"

The two sat in silence now, Yahiko staring at Kenshin, Kenshin staring at his hands.

"But," said Yahiko hesitantly, "the ougi _didn'_t do that—Hiko's still alive!"

Kenshin laughed bitterly. "Only because I used the sakabatou. For me, that lesson was learned when Tomoe died."

Silence descended once again as what Kenshin said sank in. Then he said, "Yahiko, when you brandished your shinai this morning and threatened to go after that tax collector, maybe you were just being theatrical, but maybe you really meant it. Kamiya Kasshin Ryu is the sword that protects life, and as its student, you must learn to live by its teachings. But you have also taken it upon yourself to imitate the most deadly form of swordsmanship known to man. With that, you have taken upon yourself the burden of needing to understand the lessons of the style you wish to emulate, even if you yourself are never required to take that final step. Do you understand what I'm saying? You have placed an immense burden upon yourself."

Yahiko sat there looking blankly at Kenshin. His mind was spinning at the implications of what Kenshin said. If he were a real student of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, then that would require him to—what? Kill Kenshin? How could he ever live with himself after doing that—ever live with _anyone_ after doing that? It was inconceivable!

And then, for the first time, he truly understood the burden Kenshin had been living with all these years, what Kenshin meant about the weight on one's soul that each death caused. He had thought of himself as so grown-up when Kenshin had started this little talk, but now he realized what an immature baby he really was.

Finally, he said, "I was just being a dumb jerk this morning—you know I would follow you anywhere! It's just that I've been so angry with you all these weeks for abandoning everybody—for abandoning _me_—and then you got mad at me about that tax collector guy, and I didn't understand, and…."

Kenshin put up his hands and said, "You had every right to be angry with me for abandoning you the way I did, but at least some good came from Rakuninmura. I found the answer I had been seeking for ten long years, and I won my battle against despair. Use your power wisely, Yahiko, and perhaps you'll never need to fight that battle at all."

And with that, he stood up, bowed, and left, leaving a rather stunned Yahiko to contemplate all he had heard.

**

* * *

****Japanese Terms:**

Sen: roughly equivalent to a penny. The Meiji government did away with the old monetary system (ryu, etc.) and replaced it with one based on the decimal system, 100 sen 1 yen. These wages are based on an article written in English by a Japanese writer in the 1890s (_The Japanese Workers' Condition: Labor Report from Meiji Japan_), available on the internet.

Monpei, jinbei, kosode: simple tops and pants worn by workers and tradesmen, i.e., clothing of the lower classes.

Fundoshi: men's loincloth.

Hakama: the flowing pants Kenshin always wears. It was considered clothing of the upper classes.

Tabi: Japanese sock with a thick sole and a separate section for the big toe, also considered clothing of the upper classes.

Zori: Japanese sandals.

Kanto region: the area that includes Tokyo.

Daimyo: the regional feudal lords who used to rule Japan.

Bakufu: the military government of the shogunate.

Tatami: padded woven mats commonly used as floor coverings.

Aku, soku, zan: Saitoh's personal motto which, loosely translated, means "Kill evil instantly."

Kata: the prescribed moves of a martial art.

Ougi: the succession technique of a sword style.

**Author's Note: **Thank you, everyone, for all the reviews! Some of you have even anticipated where this story is going. I didn't think, though, that so many of you would be surprised at Yahiko's insolence to Kenshin in the last chapter. If you think about the implications of what happened during Jinchuu, one of the most prominent is that Yahiko is abandoned by everyone except Megumi. Kaoru is presumed dead, Sano takes off for his hometown, and the one man he looks up to above all others—Kenshin—not only disappears into Rakuninmura, but refuses to come out. Wouldn't you have some built-up resentment if that happened to you? As for Kenshin's reaction to Yahiko's taunt, Kenshin knows his descent into Rakuninmura was, in its way, a very public baring of his soul. I think it's made him feel, if not ashamed, then certainly vulnerable. Thus, he lashes out at Yahiko but then feels compelled to make things right with him again.

So, the world now, for Kenshin, has changed dramatically. Not only does he need to figure out a new way to interact with people, now that he's no longer a rurouni, but he also has to deal with the fact that he can't live anonymously anymore. After all, a good part of Tokyo knows it was a vendetta against him that caused Enishi and his henchmen to destroy parts of the city. For someone who's spent his entire life hiding in plain sight, that may be the most difficult change of all.

My information on how tatami mats were made comes from the excellent book _Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-Town Japan_, by Dr. Junichi Saga.

**Next Chapter:** A threat appears from an unexpected quarter that could affect the lives of everyone at the dojo.


	3. Chapter 3

Kaoru thought there was something not quite right about the tax collector's reaction when she came to pay her taxes. Maybe she was right.

I wish I could say that I own all the copyrights to Rurouni Kenshin, but alas, they really belong to Watsuki Nobuhiro, Sony, Jump, and lots of other bigger fish than me.

**Learning to Live Again**

**By **

**Conspirator**

**Chapter 3**

Kenshin awoke the next morning about an hour before sunrise. Considering the trouble he had been having lately getting up this early, he was moderately surprised. Then he realized why. "Cooo, cooo, cooo, cooo," he heard.

It was coming from somewhere in the courtyard, and it was accompanied by the sound of wings beating against wood. He bolted from the futon and ran silently outside to find a pigeon flapping around in one of the water buckets. He gently reached in to free it and found a cylinder wrapped around one of its legs. The cylinder had a tiny kanji that said "oni." No sooner did he remove the cylinder than the bird pecked him sharply on the hand and flew off, causing him to step back in surprise and knock over the bucket. That sound brought Kaoru out the door, followed by a very bleary Yahiko. They were just in time to see the bird fly off.

"What in the world…?" Kaoru said as she reached Kenshin's side.

He smiled sheepishly and said, "Nothing to worry about—sessha just lost his balance, that's all."

Well, talk about a bald-faced lie, Kaoru thought. Kenshin? Lose his balance? Fat chance! Yahiko snickered, then yawned and headed back to his room, but Kaoru was sure she'd seen Kenshin take something off that bird's leg. Her mind was still foggy from sleep, but slowly she worked it out. That had been a carrier pigeon! And so she said, "What have you got in your hand?"

"My hand?" Kenshin repeated. Once again he gave that sheepish smile, an attempt to stall off the inevitable, but he could see from Kaoru's face that he'd best not hide this from her. So, he opened his hand to show the tiny cylinder. "It's really nothing," he said, "just a message for me from the Oniwabanshu…."

"The Oniwabanshu?" Kaoru repeated dumbly. "A message for you?" Maybe she was sleepier than she thought. Did she hear that right? But slowly, more fog lifted from her brain and she gave him a withering look. "Okay, what's going on? Why a carrier pigeon and not just a plain old letter from Misao-chan or Aoshi-san?"

Kenshin quickly put up his hands and said, "Nothing's going on—really! It's just that when we were in Kyoto a few weeks ago to visit, Misao-dono made a proposal to me, and sessha accepted. She takes her role as okashira of the Oniwabanshu very seriously, and she's concerned that her people's skills have, well, perhaps deteriorated some over the past few years, and she'd like to correct that. She noted that now that sessha intends to live permanently in Tokyo, and in light of what happened with Enishi, even with Udo Jine…."

"And Shinomori Aoshi, before Shishio," Kaoru pointed out.

"Yes, and Shinomori Aoshi," Kenshin admitted, "that perhaps this one wouldn't mind having her onmitsu sharpen their skills by keeping their eyes and ears out in Tokyo and around the country for threats against me. In fact, she told me this idea came from Aoshi himself, and this one agreed."

"So," Kaoru said, suddenly looking furtively in all directions, "what you're saying is that ever since we got back from Kyoto, they've been spying on us?" She suddenly covered her front with her arms. "Have I had _no_ privacy whatsoever since then? I mean, where are they? _I_ haven't seen them!"

Kenshin started chuckling. "Kaoru-dono, they're _ninjas_—you're not supposed to see them."

"Oh, yeah, right," she blushed. "But still…."

"And they haven't been watching you in the bath, if that's what you're worried about," he added. "Apparently, though, they've found something they need to communicate."

Kaoru frowned. "You don't think it's serious, do you?" she said as memories of the fight with Enishi came rushing back.

Kenshin shrugged, then opened the cylinder to read the message. "The note is an address. Perhaps sessha should go there first thing today before looking for work."

Kaoru shivered, not so much from the cold morning air as from fear. "Yes," she said, "perhaps you should."

And so, after a very hurried breakfast, Kenshin set about preparing for his visit to the Oniwabanshu. The Oniwabanshu, of course, had been famous in Tokyo for generations as the guardians of the shogun's castle, but the organization had always been much more than just one unit working for the shogun. Just as in Kyoto, most members lived by hiding in plain sight, working at jobs that gave them ready access to vast amounts of information. Okina's group, of course, ran an inn, but others worked as farmers, store keepers, geisha, you name it. This cell apparently worked as coopers, a perfect job for information gathering, for everyone had a need for buckets and barrels, and there was always good gossip to be heard during the transactions. More to the point, however, it was coopers who supplied the large barrels used to transport the dead to the local cemeteries. What better way to learn who was killing off whom than by supplying the coffins?

Kenshin, however, merely needed to bring in a broken bucket in order to look like an ordinary customer. So, he took one of the tofu buckets and, making sure Kaoru wasn't looking, whacked it against the side of the shed. It took two attempts, but finally one of the slats split open. And so, with his ticket of entry in hand, so to speak, he went off to find the cooper.

The shop, it turned out, was in a part of the city that Kenshin always avoided—the area where government buildings, foreign embassies, and foreign businesses were located. Not that the presence of gaijin bothered him—he had never subscribed to the sonno joi philosophy in the first place. No, it was the government he wanted to stay away from, for he knew that those who remembered him from the Bakumatsu, whether friend or foe, would never see him as anything but the lethal hitokiri of the Ishin Shishi. He had to admit, though, that this area did make a perfect location for a spy network.

And so, with only the name of an alley to go by, he wandered around a neighborhood that, to him, looked like it came straight out of one of those ghost stories he'd heard parents tell their children. No gracefully swooping rooflines or wooden gates here—it was all hard stone and brick and spiky iron fences like prison bars, and rows upon rows of what looked like limbless trees all tied together with wires as far as the eye could see. He had heard that messages were sent along these wires—telegraph, they called it—but he had never actually seen any of those messages traveling along the wires. The poles, however, certainly took up a lot of sidewalk space, making passage, let alone asking directions from passersby, next to impossible. And so, it took a bit of maneuvering to find the dead-end alley where the cooper was located.

It was a busy shop, even this early in the morning, and Kenshin had to stand in line to wait his turn to talk to the shopkeeper. The customers, he noted, were mostly Japanese, although there was one gaijin—he guessed a maid or a cook—dressed in that strange high-necked but tightly fitted style Western women seemed to prefer. The woman spoke no Japanese, and so it took several minutes of pointing and pantomime for her to make her needs known, which turned out to be a new water bucket. Finally, it was his own turn, and he showed his damaged tofu bucket to the clerk. The clerk just grunted and waved him on to the repair room.

There Kenshin found a middle-aged man surrounded by piles of wooden slats of all sizes and shapes, coils of rope, a bucket of smelly pine pitch, and a fire and anvil for forming iron barrel rings. A handful of customers milled about looking at his wares, and one woman was sitting in front of him while he did a repair.

When the man had finished and the customer had left, he waved Kenshin over. Without a word, the man took the broken tofu bucket and began to remove the offending slat. Kenshin, at this point, was beginning to wonder if he had come to the right place, for neither the clerk nor this man had given even the merest hint that they knew who he was. He knew better than to show any outward concern, however, and so he sat and waited and watched as the cooper's deft hands undid the bucket's rope bindings and started to fit in a new slat. It was then that Kenshin felt the unmistakable sensation of being scrutinized in minute detail. For Kenshin, who had made a career of avoiding such scrutiny, it was, to say the least, a highly disconcerting experience.

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the scrutiny ended. The cooper looked around the room, noted two women in the far corner, then nodded his head to Kenshin as if giving him permission to speak. So Kenshin said in a low voice, "You have information for me?"

"A threat," the man said, "but not against you. It is against Kamiya Kaoru."

"Kaoru-dono?" Kenshin repeated softly in surprise, although his face showed nothing. This he did not expect.

The man began preparing some pine pitch to slather on the new slat as he said, "There is a man in Osaka who has designs on Kamiya-san's property. We know he tried to defraud her last March of what is rightly hers, but he was thwarted by you. Until now, he made no other move, so we did not deem it necessary to tell you."

"But he has made another move now?" Kenshin asked.

"The tax collector yesterday," the man replied as he started winding rope around the new slat to join it to the others. "There is no tax collection in your neighborhood for several more months. Had Kamiya-san not paid him what he asked, however, he would have forced her to sign papers that would have handed over her dojo to his employer."

"Who is…?"

"Kamiya-san's uncle—older brother of her father—a man named Nakahira Masayoshi. A minor bureaucrat, not a swordsman. Our information is that he will keep trying until he succeeds."

Kenshin sat back on his heels as he contemplated this news. What attempt had he thwarted in March? He had only just arrived in Tokyo at that time….

Then it dawned on him. Hiruma Gohei and his brother, the false Battousai. Hadn't Kaoru told him that Hiruma Kihei just happened to show up on her doorstep shortly after she learned her father had been killed in the Seinan War? Hadn't the goal of the Hiruma brothers been to force Kaoru into bankruptcy and thus force her to sign over the dojo to them? So, it had all been at the behest of an unknown uncle, who would never have tried if Kaoru's father were still alive and who clearly hadn't counted on the real Hitokiri Battousai showing up. "You are taking care of the tax collector?" Kenshin asked.

"The money will be retrieved, though it will take time."

The cooper continued working the new slat into the tofu bucket, but from the corner of his eye he watched the seemingly impassive Kenshin. Kenshin was clearly a master at hiding his ki, but the cooper was a member of the Oniwabanshu, after all, and even a master like Kenshin could not prevent the nearly invisible twitches of his sword hand from being detected by a highly trained ninja like himself. A decision, the man could tell, was being made. He handed the repaired bucket back to Kenshin.

Kenshin nodded in acknowledgement and said, "Your help has been invaluable. A trip to Osaka appears to be in order. Sessha thanks you for your information."

He bowed again, then stood to leave. As he did, he saw, wedged next to the repaired slat, a small slip of paper. He showed no sign of recognition, nor did the cooper expect him to, but both knew the paper held information for the trip. As Kenshin passed the other customers, no one would have guessed what had just transpired.

When he got back to the dojo, Kaoru was standing at the gate, wringing her hands.

"I thought you were supposed to be teaching this morning," Kenshin said, and he turned on a reassuring smile.

"Yes, well… they can wait," she said. She had been so worried that, though Kenshin was gone only a short time, it had felt like a day. "Tell me what happened."

What was he going to tell her? Kaoru had mentioned that her father had been disowned by his family, but was she aware that her father's family had been keeping track of them nonetheless? Well, he couldn't lie to her, but he didn't have to tell her the whole truth, either, and so he merely said, "There seems to be someone in Osaka making some suspicious noises. Sessha will need to go see about it."

Kaoru didn't say a thing, but stared hard into Kenshin's eyes. He seemed to be sincere, but then again, was this just the rurouni act? He was a notoriously bad liar when it came to details, and he didn't seem like he was lying, so why was she having a hard time believing what he was saying? "Kenshin," she finally said, "if there's some kind of threat, you'd better not keep me in the dark about it…."

"No one's talking about violence," Kenshin said quickly, "just a man who needs to be talked to, that's all."

"No swords? No battles?" she asked pointedly.

"No swords, no battles," Kenshin said, "and anyway, even if there were, you can't afford to close up everything like you did when you followed me to Kyoto."

He had a point there. "But how will you get there? We have no money…."

"Sessha will find a way," he said. "If nothing else, this one can always walk."

Although, it occurred to him, with Osaka being about 300 miles from Tokyo, that would mean at least two weeks of lost wages while he traveled, which they couldn't afford right now. In the distance he heard the timekeeper go by ringing the hour. Once again, he was getting a later start looking for work than he had hoped, but then again the job he got yesterday at the labor exchange had come mid-morning. Already he knew what he must do to prepare for a trip to Osaka, and so he decided to take care of that business first. It would be good to see Chief Uramura again.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

"Himura-san, it's so good to see you up and about!"

Chief Uramura hadn't seen Kenshin since the first wave of Enishi's attacks, when Kenshin had come to apologize to him for injuries the chief had suffered at the hands of Enishi's henchmen. Uramura had heard, however, about the events of the later attacks, and he was amazed to see Kenshin looking so fit. "I must say, Himura-san, you have remarkable recuperative powers."

"The same could be said of you," Kenshin replied with a smile. "Sessha will never forgive himself for that attack on you."

"Don't worry yourself over it," the chief said. "I'm an old samurai—I know how to take it. Not like these young whelps nowadays, eh? Awfully soft, if you ask me."

"Some, perhaps," Kenshin allowed, though he didn't think the end of the samurai era was necessarily a bad thing.

"And what can I do for you today?" the chief continued, a wide smile on his face.

"Well," Kenshin began, "sessha promised to tell you if the need ever came for this one to travel outside of Tokyo, and this one now finds the need to travel to Osaka. Sessha will want to carry the sakabatou, so perhaps if you could provide me with an official letter showing that this one is permitted to carry it….?"

"Ah," said the chief as his demeanor changed to all business. He pulled out some paper and started writing. "And is this trip business or pleasure?"

What difference did that make, Kenshin wondered?

"Sorry, Himura-san," the chief said as he took in Kenshin's silence, "just a courtesy for the police chief on the other end, if you get my drift."

Not really, but Kenshin wasn't going to argue. "A family matter," he finally said, figuring that should do the trick.

The chief looked up, a mischievous smile on his lips. "Himura-san, is this related in any way to, perhaps, a marriage proposal? Congratulations!"

Kenshin turned beet red. "Oh no, no, no!" he protested, "nothing like that! Just…a family matter, that's all."

The chief didn't look convinced, but he nodded his head and busily wrote something down. "And how will you be traveling?" he asked.

"By foot," Kenshin answered.

The chief's eyebrow twitched. "By foot," he repeated. "All the way to Osaka."

"Aa."

The chief put his brush down and looked appraisingly at Kenshin, as if deciding whether to ask him something or not. Finally, he said, "How would you like to ride the train to Osaka for free as a police security guard."

"Chief, you know sessha will not work for the police," Kenshin said. "Or the army," he thought to add before the chief could suggest it.

"Ah," the chief said. "Even though it means an important shipment of gold might get stolen again." He reached into his desk and pulled out a newspaper. 'Train Robbers Grab Central Bank Gold!' screamed the headline. He pushed it towards Kenshin. "Undoubtedly, you've seen this."

"Aa," Kenshin admitted. It was the latest in a growing string of train robberies that was rattling the business community all up and down the main island. "But what does this have to do with me?"

"Himura-san, these thieves have become more and more daring, and somehow—we don't know how—they're getting inside information on where and when the central bank ships its gold bullion to the regional branches. The next shipment is scheduled to go to the regional bank in Osaka. The army provides extra guards for these shipments, but that hasn't stopped the train robbers. In fact, just today I got a request from the army for a detail of undercover detectives to ride with the next shipment.. But when you walked in the door, a wonderful idea came to me. If you'd be willing to hire on as an extra guard and actually ride in the baggage car with the gold, I'd certainly sleep better at night. We could pay you twenty sen for the day, meals included. What do you say?"

Kenshin wasn't sure what to say. He had long ago decided never again to put his skills at the service of any government agency, although helping protect a gold shipment might be different.

"Maybe this will help you decide," the chief said as Kenshin stood there thinking. "If you insist on walking all the way to Osaka, then you'll need more than just a letter from the chief of the Tokyo police. You'll be going through too many jurisdictions for that, and most of them are controlled by the army, so I'll have to contact the army anyway to get a letter from them. Of course, once they know of your availability, well, let's just say they don't take no for an answer and they don't pay half as well as we do."

A sardonic smile crossed Kenshin's face. He had seen that little twitch of the eyebrow when Uramura heard him say he planned to walk. That wasn't exactly the plan of someone who could afford a more comfortable means of transportation. There was probably no real reason they needed him as an extra guard, but it certainly was one way to offer him a free ride that he would never accept otherwise. He chuckled inwardly at Uramura's cleverness. How could he refuse his generous gesture? "When does this train leave?" he finally said.

The chief smiled broadly. "In two days. There will be a couple of army sharpshooters riding with the bullion, and I'll have my plainclothes detectives spread out through the passenger cars. Himura-san, I can't tell you how happy I am that you've agreed! Here's your letter, made out to the chief of police in Osaka. Be sure to show it to him first thing. Oh, and take this, too," he added as he dashed off another letter. "Your orders. Report to Captain Hashiguchi at the Shimbashi train station at 11 a.m., day after tomorrow. And good luck with that 'family matter' in Osaka!"

Day after tomorrow? That left hardly any time to earn money to help stock the dojo with food and firewood to last until he got back. This called for a change in plans—no time to risk his luck at the labor exchange now, especially given his hunch that the tatami-factory owner had probably warned every foreman in the area about him. No, he needed to go where he knew for sure he could earn something, even if it was only a few sen. And he knew just the place to try—the Oguni Clinic.

Part of Megumi's job at the clinic, being the junior doctor, had been to mix medicines for the entire clinic. When she left, Kenshin had offered to fill in, using the skills he had learned long ago in Otsu, until Dr. Oguni could find a replacement for her. It had worked out well for both himself and the doctor, for Kenshin had no other way to pay for the rest of his medical care and Dr. Oguni had no time to mix medicines himself. Kenshin hadn't been to the clinic in over a week now. Maybe that's what the cryptic message Yahiko had brought from the clinic the other day was all about. Perhaps the doctor was running low.

As he entered the clinic, however, he noticed a new name alongside that of Dr. Oguni, and as he looked down the hall, he saw the doctor chatting animatedly with a young man in western dress. Maybe he was too late…

"Oh, Himura-san!" Dr. Oguni called out to him when he saw him standing in the anteroom. "Come meet my new doctor!"

With a sinking heart, Kenshin plastered a smile on his face and dutifully walked down the hall, bowing low.

"Let me introduce you to Takani Megumi's replacement, Uchida Yudai. He's a full-fledged graduate of the Tokyo Medical College!" and it was said with such enthusiasm that Kenshin dutifully produced an awe-struck "Oh!"

"That's English medicine, Himura-kun! Even more modern than my own Dutch training!"

Himura-_kun? _The normally crusty doctor was certainly feeling friendly today! Kenshin bowed even lower, noting that the new doctor barely bothered to acknowledge him.

"Uchida-san," the doctor said to his new colleague as he swept his arm towards Kenshin, "this man was an invaluable help to me after your predecessor left. Why, not only is he a good and loyal patient, but for weeks he's been doing a perfect job mixing all my medicines for me. I don't know how I would have managed without his help!" Then, turning to Kenshin he said, "And to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit today? Surely not a problem with that shoulder!"

"Oh, no, Oguni-sensei," Kenshin said, "the shoulder is perfect, or at least nearly so. You sent sessha a message yesterday?" He noted a small snicker from the new doctor at the old-fashioned 'sessha.' "This one thought perhaps you needed some medicines mixed, but it looks like you've got things covered now…"

"Oh, yes, that was to let you know of Uchida-san's arrival. He, of course, will be taking over mixing the medicines now."

"Well, then…." Kenshin faltered, but his need to earn some money was so great that he took the liberty of taking Dr. Oguni's arm and pulling him off to the side.

"Oguni-sensei," he said softly so the new doctor couldn't hear, "you know that Kaoru-dono does not have much money and that sessha has no job to speak of, but now sessha must make an urgent trip on her behalf, and it's imperative that this one earn some money before leaving to help tide her over. Any odd jobs—message delivery, anything—that this one could do today to earn a little something…."

"Hmmm, let me think," the doctor murmured as he frowned in thought. Then he said, "Well, there _is_ one thing you could do. I went up to the attic today to get down the winter shutters, and I nearly fell through the floorboards. They appear to be rotted. Do you know how to fix something like that?"

"Absolutely!" Kenshin said with enthusiasm.

"Then you've got yourself a job! Oh, but I don't have any cash on hand to pay you right now…."

"That's okay," Kenshin said quickly. "Perhaps you could pay me with some firewood, or maybe a little tea or…."

"Good idea," the doctor said quickly. "Prices have been rising so fast these days, thanks to that stupid little samurai uprising last year. Yes, bartering would be much more equitable. Listen, go down to the lumber yard near the public bath—I've got a line of credit there—and pick up what you need. And how does a half-rick of wood sound as payment? Perhaps some tofu as well?"

"That's much more than the job's worth!" Kenshin started to protest, but Dr. Oguni was already walking back towards the new doctor.

"No, no, Himura-kun, it's a happy day today! Take it and be happy, too!"

And so, Kenshin examined the attic, bought the lumber, and set about fixing the rotted floorboards. By sunset he was done, and he strode home happily with the precious firewood strapped to his back and a bucket of tofu in his hand. Now all he needed to do was ask Tae if she'd allow him to put in a day's worth of work in exchange for some meals for Kaoru and he'd be able to leave with a clear conscience.

"Kaoru-dono?" he called out as he went around back to unload the wood.

From inside came the overpowering smell of overcooked rice. He ran to the kitchen, fully expecting to find Kaoru at the stove, but she wasn't there. He quickly removed the pot from the heat and opened the window to let out the fumes, then went down the hall to look for her.

"Back here," he finally heard her call from the vicinity of the bedrooms. Much to his surprise, he found her not in her own room, but in his, and the floor was strewn not with his own clothes, but with kimono and hakama and all manner of clothing that obviously were not his.

"Kaoru-dono?" he said tentatively. "What is all this?"

"Oh, Kenshin!" she answered, pushing her hair off her face with her forearm. "I was just going through my father's old clothes, looking for something suitable for you to wear on your trip."

Why was everyone suddenly complaining about his clothes? Yesterday, it was the laborers complaining he looked too much like a stuck-up samurai, now his clothing wasn't good enough? Well, it just so happened that today he had actually put on fairly decent clothes because of his meeting with Chief Uramura, and he had even managed not to rip them despite all the hammering and sawing he had done at the clinic. Once he washed them, he was sure they'd be perfectly neat and clean again. Rather defensively, he said, "Sessha does have something decent to wear, you know."

Kaoru ignored his comment and held a deep blue kimono up to him. "This would look great on you!" she said enthusiastically.

Kenshin grabbed the kimono from her and said, "What's going on?"

Kaoru grabbed it back. "I know you've got decent clothes, but let's be honest here—nothing you have looks as respectable as this!" and she waved her arm over the items spread out on the floor. "Anyway, you say you have to have a talk with someone in Osaka, right? They'll listen better if you're not dressed like a former vagabond, right?"

She had him there. "But…," he started anyway.

"No buts, Kenshin. These clothes have just been sitting in this chest with no one to wear them, and now there's someone to wear them! Just try this on. And this. And this…."

Kaoru plied Kenshin with not only the deep blue kimono, but also what looked like nearly new black hakama, a warm padded haori, three other kimono, and a western-style woolen overcoat. "Please, Kenshin, for me?" she pleaded.

How could he say no? He looked over the heap of clothes in his arms and said, "I'll try them on after dinner, alright? But first we'd better rehabilitate that rice you left on the stove."

Kaoru's eyes went wide. "Oh my gosh, the rice! I totally forgot!" and she ran from the room. Howls of anguish began to emanate from the kitchen, so he quickly folded everything and hurried after her. Maybe he'd better talk to Tae tonight about those meals instead of waiting for tomorrow, he thought with a smile.

Tae, of course, readily agreed to his plan. She had been surprised to find that the Akabeko's destruction and rebirth, so to speak, had made her little restaurant more popular than ever, and she welcomed any extra help Kenshin could give her.

Yahiko, however, was another story.

"How can you go off to Osaka like this and not take us with you?" Yahiko complained the next morning as he and Kenshin headed off to the Akabeko for work.

"Sessha's already explained—there is no physical danger, sessha merely needs to have a talk with someone as a precaution. Anyway, there's no money for train tickets for you or Kaoru-dono."

"And since when does you having a talk with someone ever lead to anything but a battle? Anyway, don't you remember what happened the last time you left us behind? Ol' busu there just sat and cried for days before taking off after you!"

"Your _sensei_," Kenshin corrected, "knows she can't afford to lose any work right now. And that time was different. We all knew sessha was heading off to fight a most formidable opponent. This time, there's no physical threat, the man isn't even a swordsman. Anyway, it would ease my mind greatly to know you were here in Tokyo and staying at the dojo while this one is gone."

"I take your point. Kaoru could use having Myojin the Cannon-slayer here to help protect her."

Kenshin sighed, then pulled Yahiko to a halt. Yahiko had been much more deferential to both him and Kaoru since their long talk, but it clearly hadn't affected the other danger of having so much power too soon—his overweening ego.

"Yahiko," he said, "sessha knows you are justifiably proud of your battle against Kujiranami. Such bravery and skill coming from a boy your age are undeniably outstanding. But never forget that Kamiya Kaoru is an extremely talented swordswoman in her own right and that she herself defeated an extraordinarily dangerous opponent in Kyoto—Kamatari the Great Scythe. And yet she doesn't go around calling herself 'Kamiya the Scythe Slayer,' does she? Just remember—you have not surpassed her, not by any means."

"Then why do you need me to protect her if she's so much better than I am?"

"Because Tokyo's a dangerous place, and word will inevitably get around that sessha has left town. Even as talented as Kaoru-dono is, as a woman she has certain…physical vulnerabilities, shall we say?… that men don't have. For instance, if that yakuza gang that used to own you is still angry about their defeat at my hands last spring, and if a dozen of them decided to take advantage of my absence, and the Oniwabanshu don't intercept them in time…. You get my drift?"

"I understand completely—no one's going to rape _my_ sensei, even if she is an old hag!" Yahiko said with gusto. "You can count on me!"

And so the day passed quickly, with Kenshin washing dishes, running out to the markets, and chopping vegetables for Tae, as well as washing all her table linens. It was enough work to provide Kaoru with several good meals. Then it was back to the dojo to not only make dinner, but also to cook up several days' worth of rice to make into rice balls, which he figured would last Kaoru and Yahiko three or four days. Then, before leaving for the train station in the morning, he would harvest what little was left in his garden so that they would have some fresh vegetables to eat while he was gone. All that was left now was to pack.

A knock on the shoji interrupted him. It was Kaoru, holding the medicine chest Megumi had given Kenshin before she left for Aizu.

"I thought you might need this," she said softly as she looked at the clothes he was folding neatly before putting them into his travel bag. He was taking her father's deep blue kimono, she saw, along with the black hakama and padded haori, in addition to a set of his own well-worn clothes.

Then she set down the chest and walked over to the pile, for she saw, tucked in with the clothes, the familiar-looking round container with Megumi's special wound salve, the one that had literally saved Kenshin from bleeding to death in Kyoto and after the battles with Enishi. She stilled, then picked it up. "What's this doing here?" she said in a deathly quiet voice.

The dread and fear Kenshin felt from her ki was totally unexpected. He took the container from her hand and said, "It's just a precautionary measure."

Her eyes bored deep into his. "A precaution against what, Kenshin? You told me there would be no battles on this trip. You promised me you wouldn't hide things like that from me anymore."

Kenshin took her hand. "Kaoru-dono, sessha's already told you—there will be no battles, the man isn't even a swordsman. But you know sessha can never be entirely sure that someone won't recognize him, and there is the small matter of my promise to Chief Uramura to help guard that shipment on the train."

She shuddered, and he squeezed her hand a little tighter. "Now, you know sessha thinks that was just something the chief came up with as a way to offer this one a free train ride he'd otherwise refuse, but it is true that bandits have hit these trains recently."

"I know," she said softly. "It's just…well, if anything happened to you, if anything kept you from coming back…."

Kenshin laughed gently. "After these past few months, you know it would have to be quite an 'anything' to keep me from coming back. Anyway, sessha will only be gone maybe a week and a half—even less if this one can find a way to earn enough for a train ticket back—and the Oniwabanshu will be helping me. This one will be home before you know it. We can even walk together tomorrow when you go to the Maekewa dojo, since it's on the way to the station."

She smiled weakly. It wasn't going to be easy, letting him go like this, but she remembered Megumi's warning to her in Kyoto—she needed to be strong for him or he might not survive the next fight. Suddenly, she straightened and said, "Right! Let's get things packed. You _will_ be back in no time! And maybe by then I'll even have some students of my own!"

Kenshin smiled. Crisis averted. Now he just hoped that everything would go as smoothly as he had promised.

* * *

**Japanese Terms:**

Oni: as in Oniwabanshu; 'oni' means 'demon.'

Okashira: the boss

Onmitsu: spy

Gaijin: foreigner

Sonno joi: the original ideology of the Ishin Shishi to "revere the emperor, expel the barbarians" (i.e., foreigners).

Bakumatsu: the civil war that overthrew the shogunate.

Seinan War: the revolt in 1877 of former samurai in Satsuma against the Meiji government .

Saya: sword sheath.

Busu: hag

**  
Author's Note:**

The year 1878 was a difficult one for not only the characters in Rurouni Kenshin. Inflation was rampant because of the cost of putting down the samurai rebellion in Satsuma the previous year. That was the Seinan War, in which Kaoru's father died. It didn't help that Satsuma was a prime rice-growing region, so food prices also sky-rocketed due to the war.

Wondering why Kaoru's uncle is named Nakahira and not Kamiya, like her father? Throughout Japanese history, people constantly changed their names from the ones they were born with. We all know about Saito changing his name to Fujita Goro (he was born Yamaguchi Hajime, by the way), and Katsura Kogoro had at least two other names before settling for Kido Takayoshi (or Kido Koin, depending on how one reads the kanji). So I have Kaoru's father changing his name after being disowned.

My description of telegraph poles on Tokyo streets comes from a photo I saw recently in a book about Tokyo circa 1878. The poles seemed to be plopped every couple of feet on the narrow sidewalks, leaving no room to walk. The accompanying text quoted someone from the time lamenting how all this new western technology was wiping away all the grace and charm of traditional Japan. Kenshin isn't the only one having trouble acclimating!

**Next Chapter:** Finally, some action as Kenshin takes the train to Osaka and meets the Osaka branch of the Oniwabanshu!


	4. Chapter 4

Kenshin arrives in Osaka and discovers the hand behind many recent events.

Sony, Jump, Viz, all you other mighty copyright holders—I promise not to make a dime off my feeble attempts at storytelling! Watsuki Nobuhiro, of course, deserves all the credit for creating RK.

**Learning to Live Again**

**By**

**Conspirator**

**Chapter 4**

Shimbashi Station. Just the name alone was enough to remind anyone of how much Japan had changed since the fall of the shogun. For six years already, a commuter train had been running several times a day between Shimbashi Station and Yokohama, cutting the two-hour trek into a short half-hour trip. Travelers could go north to Sendai, a trip that used to take half a day, in less than three hours. And now, the jewel in the crown had been completed—the long-distance train to Osaka—cutting the formerly week-long journey to a mere twenty hours. No western mansion, no telegraph office, no steam-powered factory could convey the miracles of western technology better than this!

And so, it was no surprise that the station was jammed with arriving and departing passengers. Kenshin, of course, had no trouble navigating through the crowd—they gave him wide berth when they caught sight of the sword at his side. Ever since his encounter with the sword-bearing police in the spring, he had agreed to place an official badge on his saya showing that he had permission from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police to carry his weapon, but two years of the sword ban had caused most people to view any public wearing of a sword with suspicion.

He found the train bound for Osaka at the far end of the station, and he pushed through the crowd of street vendors and passengers waiting to board until he came to the two baggage cars at the rear. A soldier was standing by the second baggage car, looking up and down the platform with an irritated look on his face.

"You are Captain Hashiguchi?" Kenshin said as he gave an appropriate bow.

The captain gave Kenshin a cursory look and said dismissively, "The conductor is down there."

"Himura Kenshin, reporting for duty," Kenshin said, ignoring the captain's comment.

"_You're_ Himura Kenshin?" The captain gave him a second look, then checked the list in his hands. It did say "Himura Kenshin—sword-bearing police guard," but this man wasn't wearing any kind of uniform. Not only that, the man looked no bigger than a boy and didn't even have a regulation haircut. "_You're_ with the sword-bearing police?" the captain asked incredulously.

"No," Kenshin answered, and he handed the man the orders Chief Uramura had given him two days ago.

The captain read the paper, then crumpled it in his hand. "This is some kind of joke, right?"

"You can think that if you wish" Kenshin replied evenly, though he was starting to get a bit annoyed with this man.

The captain started to guffaw. Did the Tokyo police really think they could toy with him like this? "This _is_ a joke!" he laughed. "Okay, I've been had, you can go now. Hahahahaha!" and he started to walk away.

"Captain Hashiguchi," Kenshin called out coldly, for he was beginning to lose his patience. "I am the extra guard sent by Chief Uramura of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. You will kindly show me to my post."

The captain stopped and turned around. There was something in that tone of voice—he didn't know exactly what—that made him think it wouldn't be wise to ignore this strange-looking little man.

"Okay, okay," he said cautiously, "follow me," and he led Kenshin up the steps of the baggage car and unlocked the sliding door. Trying hard to stifle a laugh, he called out to the men inside, "Look what the Tokyo police sent us as an extra guard!"

The men glanced up from their card game and burst out laughing, until one of them caught a strange amber gleam from the newcomer's eyes. He choked back his laugh and loudly cleared his throat, causing the others to shut up as well. The sudden silence took the captain by surprise, and he looked around to find the reason for it, but the amber had long since left Kenshin's eyes. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Strange….

"Well, men," the captain finally said after an uncomfortable moment, "I know you'll all feel so much safer now, so cheer up! Get back to those cards!" Then he laughed again and headed back outside.

With this, the men loosened up, and some even joined in the laughter, but as the door started closing slowly behind him, the captain suddenly turned, a look of recognition taking hold in his eyes as he said, "Wait a minute, aren't you that Battou…."

Kenshin quickly slammed the door shut and locked it before the captain could finish.

Kenshin now looked around the cramped baggage car, which would be his home for the next twenty hours. In addition to a few large trunks and several unmarked crates that presumably contained the gold bullion, there were five army guards, all young men aged around nineteen or twenty.

"Hey, Red, you find those clothes in an attic somewhere?" one of them snickered.

"And a _sword_! Ooooh, I'm so scared," another muttered sarcastically as he rubbed the handle of the revolver at his side.

Kenshin merely nodded to them and took a seat in the far corner. He ignored their comments. These youths grew up knowing only the Meiji era. To them, a sword was merely a thin western saber carried by the sword-bearing police—nothing to worry about. It was at their own peril that they ignored the power of a true Japanese sword, even a sheathed one and even if that sword was a sakabatou.

And so the journey began, with Kenshin sitting quietly in the corner, eyes closed and for all intents and purposes seemingly asleep most of the time, while the younger guards joked and played cards and made fun of him.

Kenshin, of course, was anything but asleep. Although he was fairly sure that Chief Uramura had offered him this job solely to save him from having to take a week-long walk to Osaka, that didn't mean there wasn't also the very real possibility of an attack by train robbers, and so all his senses were on high alert. From time to time a conductor would come back with food or drink for the men, but other than to accept what was offered, his concentration never wavered.

It was near midnight when he sensed it. All the young guards but one were asleep, and the one who was awake was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. That guard, of course, sensed nothing, but Kenshin could tell—there was someone, possibly more than one, on the roof of the train. He looked up and saw a sliding door in the ceiling, presumably for ventilation for the nearly windowless car. It should have been latched, but someone had left it unlocked. Slowly, he got up, taking care not to startle the guard, then unbolted the door and silently walked out onto the platform. He heard the bolt slide shut behind him.

Now he stood between cars, forcing his senses to stretch past the noise of the tracks and the wind. It was the forward car, not his own, where the danger lay. He quietly climbed the small ladder leading to that car's roof until he could just peer over the top. Two men dressed as ninjas were scurrying towards him. He quickly ducked down out of sight. From their lack of grace, he was guessing they were more likely yakuza than trained ninjas, but one could never be too careful. Perhaps the pitch and sway of the cars was throwing them off. He pressed himself into the deep shadows of the forward car's doorway and waited.

Within seconds, the two men jumped from their roof to the roof of the baggage car. As he had guessed, they headed for the sliding door in the ceiling, not thinking to look behind them. Their mistake. He silently climbed up behind them as he watched them take what looked like smoke bombs from their jackets. Then, before they could open the sliding door to drop the smoke bombs, he swept both of them off the roof with one lateral swing of the sakabatou. Nope, these fellows were anything but ninjas—he never would have gotten away with such a simple move if they had been.

He turned to jump back down to the platform between the two cars, but then saw three more men on the forward car's roof running toward him. One of them was shouting to the others and pointing at him. He could guess what the man was saying. He landed on the platform and waited. These men had no finesse, either, and as he expected, first one, then the next, then the third, jumped down to try to fight him. It didn't take much to incapacitate all three of them.

He grabbed some rope that was hanging by the door of the forward car and bound the hands of his captives, then went inside the forward car to find one of the undercover policemen Chief Uramura had sent. As he returned to the baggage car, he saw in the distance a gang of perhaps ten men standing in the tall grass alongside the tracks, shaking their fists as the train continued to barrel on past them. The rest of the yakuza, he guessed. He knocked on the door to the baggage car to be let back in. It took a few moments to rouse someone, but finally one of the guards grudgingly unbolted the door and let him in. The man apparently hadn't even heard the scuffle on the roof of his own rail car.

The next morning, as the train let off its passengers at the main terminal in Osaka, Captain Hashiguchi came in and, after embarrassing Kenshin with a deep, very respectful bow, proceeded to slap each guard hard on the face, muttering imprecations as he did.

"You blundering idiots!" the captain thundered. "You call yourself soldiers? While you were all sound asleep in here last night, _this_ man—" and he waved an arm toward Kenshin—"_this _man single-handedly defeated five yakuza who were trying to steal this shipment! _Five _men, and you would have let them smoke-bomb you and unhook your car from the rest of the train!"

The five soldiers stared at Kenshin in amazement. "You mean that little guy with the sword…?" one of them managed between slaps.

"Little guy?" the captain bellowed. "Do you know who that little guy is? The Hitokiri Battousai, that's who, you fool!"

"H-h-hitokiri?" one man whimpered in between slaps. "B-b-but…!"

Kenshin quickly grabbed his hat and travel bag and vanished into the stream of passengers disembarking from the train. Maybe this army captain didn't mind telling the whole world who Kenshin was, but Kenshin did. Osaka having been the shogun's final hideout during the Bakumatsu, he had no doubt the reputation of the Hitokiri Battousai probably remained strong here even now. He had hoped to be in and out of the city quickly enough that nobody would notice his presence, but now the guards, if not the captain himself, would no doubt tell all their friends about this little episode. Oh, well, nothing he could do about that now, so he quickly put on his hat to hide his hair, moved his sakabatou to the holder he had fashioned to the backside of his travel bag, and plowed into the pedestrian crowds leaving the station.

His first stop, of course, needed to be police headquarters to give the local police chief his letter from Chief Uramura, and thanks to directions from a ticket agent, he managed to find it quickly. It was an unwelcoming, foreboding building whose architecture seemed designed to strike fear into the hearts of law-abiding citizens, but whose obvious security flaws probably made the local yakuza laugh. Street-level windows without bars? Were they crazy? Doorways enclosed on all three sides? Didn't they realize how easy it would be for someone to hide in one? He shook his head. Even ten years out, there were still certain instincts from his days as a hitokiri that insisted upon making themselves known.

Inside, the building was almost as bad as the outside. He had to pass through a warren of corridors and offices, each time having to show the seal on his letter from Chief Uramura, before finally reaching the antechamber of the office of the chief of police. This ordeal, he guessed, was supposed to be intimidating to visitors. He just found it annoying. Finally, after waiting in the antechamber for nearly half an hour, the secretary finally announced that he could enter.

The chief of police was a large, square man with graying hair and the eyes of a predator. Kenshin introduced himself and handed him the letter from Chief Uramura, then took the chair that was offered to him and waited. The ki from this man was powerful and not necessarily benign. He pulled in his feelers when he felt a slight push back from the man.

"Uramura Yudai. Heard of him, don't know him," the chief said in a gruff voice after reading the letter. Then he leveled his gaze at Kenshin, who felt him survey every inch of his body as if to memorize it. "It says here that I should allow you to carry your sword. Swords are banned. Why would I do that?"

"It is up to you, of course," Kenshin said deferentially. "Sessha will do whatever you say."

The man's glare turned even more harshly on him. "And it further says that if I need verification of your peaceful intentions, I should contact Yamagata Aritomo. He's the commander of the entire Japanese army. Now why would I do that?"

Uramura put Yamagata Aritomo's name in the letter? This was a surprise. "Perhaps because sessha recently did him a small service," Kenshin suggested. After all, it was Yamagata who told Okubo Toshimichi where to find him last May.

There was a look of recognition before the glare turned up even further. "You mean the incident on Mt. Hiei." At Kenshin's brief glance up, he said, "Not even the great Yamagata Aritomo can keep something like that a total secret from me."

Suddenly, the intense scrutiny ended. "I'll tell you what. I don't know your Chief Uramura, and I'm no fan of that pompous General Yamagata, but as a courtesy to the chief of another major metropolitan police force, I will contact the general, and if he confirms what's in this letter, I will give you a badge to affix to your saya. Where are you staying? I'll have it sent to you."

Kenshin hesitated. It would not do to let anyone know where he was staying, seeing as it was presumably a headquarters for the Oniwabanshu, so he said, "Sessha isn't sure yet."

"Hmph," said the chief, who didn't believe a word of it. "Then you'll have to check back with me in the morning. Until then, you are not permitted to carry that sword at your side. Do you understand?"

"Yes, thank you," Kenshin said as he stood to bow. "This one is more than grateful for your efforts."

It was only moments after leaving the station that he felt the unmistakable sensation of being followed. He was beginning not to like Osaka very much. It was a good thing he had thought to get directions to his final destination before he left the train station, for he certainly did not want to ask for them now. His tail was skillful enough not to be fooled by the easiest maneuvers, but it only took one turn down a side alley and a quick leap to a roof to throw the man off. Just to make sure, though, Kenshin traveled a few more blocks by roof before returning to the street. The tail was gone. He was safe.

Luckily, his final destination was easy to find, even after taking evasive action. The paper the Oniwabanshu in Tokyo had slipped into his repaired tofu bucket contained only the barest of information, but with that he was able to determine that he was looking for an address off one of the canals near the harbor. It turned out to be a tea merchant, and a rather well-to-do one at that, for the building was quite substantial. Outside were two signs in some European language and one in Japanese that read, "Black and Green—Purveyors of Fine Tea."

He entered the store to find several customers attended to by an elderly woman and two younger ones. He decided to bide his time until they were free by looking at some of the tea in one of the open crates. As he did, he noticed one of the women make a signal to the other two that was so slight that their customers probably didn't even notice. After several minutes, one of the customers finally left, and the elderly woman walked into the store's back room, a distinctly chilly feeling emanating from her ki.

A moment later, a man appeared, clearly the woman's son, from the family resemblance. He appeared to be in his mid-30s and was dressed in somewhat formal traditional Japanese dress. This surprised Kenshin, for even he had noticed over the past few years that the more prosperous a person seemed to be, the more they tended to wear western-style clothing.

"Himura-san," the man said blandly as he gave an appropriate bow, "how nice to see you."

After his cloak-and-dagger encounter with the Oniwabanshu in Tokyo, Kenshin didn't expect such an open greeting with customers standing around. Containing his surprise, he bowed back and said, "It is good to see you, too, …."

Realizing Kenshin didn't know his name in order to finish the formality, the man quickly added, "I am the proprietor, Mizuki Michio. I understand you're looking for a rare tea, isn't that right? Come with me to the back room and I'll show it to you."

Kenshin followed him through a heavy, hinged door into a cavernous room filled with crates and bags of tea. At the far end of the room were several men unloading more crates from a barge docked in the canal that ran behind the building. This was definitely a booming business. As soon as the door between the shop and the warehouse closed, the man turned and said, "We've been expecting you. We are the Osaka branch of the Oniwabanshu."

Kenshin bowed deeply. "Please allow sessha to express his gratitude for the work you have done on his behalf."

The man gave a cryptic smile. "Yes, we understand that you provided a great service to the Oniwabanshu in Kyoto, and that they, in turn, have allied themselves with you. We are related to the Kyoto Oniwabanshu through family ties and oath, so we will do their bidding."

Kenshin got the distinct impression from the man's tone of voice that helping him was not something the Mizuki family was too anxious to do. Considering the Oniwabanshu's historical ties to the shogun and his own notoriety as an Ishin Shishi hitokiri, that wouldn't be surprising, so he said, " Our alliance may seem unusual, but then many things have changed in the last ten years."

The man led Kenshin over to a cubicle furnished with a small table and cushions, then said, "You are right, of course, Himura-san, though some wounds take longer to heal than others. I'm sure you're aware that Osaka Castle belonged to the shogun himself. Our branch of the Oniwabanshu were the defenders of that castle, just as Shinomori Aoshi's were the defenders of the shogun's castle in Tokyo. Several of our members died when Osaka Castle was attacked and destroyed by Imperial forces in 1868. My father and two uncles were among them."

"That was your mother, then, in the store…," Kenshin said, thinking of the chilly ki he had felt earlier.

"So, you've sensed her distaste already, have you?" Michio answered, a not-quite smile playing at his lips. "When the Kyoto okashira sent the order to keep an eye out for threats against you, my mother tried to forbid us from obeying. But, as you say, times have changed, and we must continue to change with them."

Kenshin bowed once again, then said, "Perhaps you could tell your mother that sessha is sorry for the loss of her husband—for the loss of your father. Please tell your family this one long ago threw away his katana in favor of a sakabatou in order to fulfill a vow never to kill again. It is my way of atoning for the crimes of the hitokiri."

He was surprised to find Michio bowing back. "You are kind to tell us this. I believe it will make a difference." Then, sitting back up, he said, "Now we have business to attend to."

"Yes," Kenshin said, "but first sessha should mention that he was required to check in with your chief of police to obtain permission to carry his sword…."

"We were aware of that," Michio said.

"Then you know he tried to have me followed."

Michio smiled enigmatically. "I presume he wasn't successful?"

"No."

"Good. It would not do for the police to know that you are receiving aid from us. My brother, you see, is a captain on the police force, and if you were to need to resort to, shall we say, extra-legal means to achieve your ends, it could put him in a rather difficult position. As for the threat that brought you here, we were briefed in September by Shinomori-sama about the extent of the attacks upon you over these last several months. He made it clear that our scope of interest should include not only yourself, but also your associates. We have our own network of informants throughout the city, so when our Tokyo branch notified us about the uncle of your associate Kamiya Kaoru, we assigned one of these informants to investigate. My brother deals with this informant on a regular basis and will arrange for him to meet us this evening after dinner. I hope the timing will be satisfactory?"

"Very," Kenshin said with a small bow.

"Good. Then I'll bring you to my house now so you can rest. I'm sure you're tired after your long journey."

Kenshin hadn't really thought about it, but now that he did, he had to admit he was dog-tired. "Sessha did have a long day," he allowed.

"The train robbers, eh?" Michio remarked. "A good piece of work." At Kenshin's surprised laugh, he added, "The okashira in Kyoto may be concerned about the skills of other of the Oniwabanshu, but there is no cause to worry about us. After the Bakumatsu, we merely changed our allegiance from the Bakufu to the Osaka municipal government. We are their eyes and ears, the protectors of Osaka. There is nothing that happens around here that we don't know." And with a self-satisfied smile, he stood and motioned for Kenshin to follow him.

Upon reentering the store, Kenshin saw that the place had filled up again while they were talking. Now there were several gaijin women in strange feathered hats and floor-length overcoats who seemed to be haggling about something or other in a language he had never heard before.

"Ah, Frau Heppner," Michio said solicitiously to one of them, and he continued to speak to the woman in words that sounded like a cross between hiccups and throat-clearing.

When Michio was done, he led Kenshin out to the street. "The wife of a newly arrived German industrialist," he explained as they started walking. "They're having a big dinner party for some of the military brass. She wanted to decorate with her favorite flower, the hollyhock. That, of course, was the crest of the Tokugawa."

Kenshin chortled at the thought of Meiji generals finding hollyhocks all around them.

"I suggested she might want to try the imperial chrysanthemum instead," Michio continued, "advice for which she was most thankful." He opened his hand to show by how many yen the woman was thankful.

"You see, we have made ourselves indispensible to these gaijin. We make it our business to speak their languages, and so they come to shop with us and ask us for advice, and along the way we learn all about who they're doing business with, who's double-crossing whom, even the occasional state secret. A strange lot, these Europeans—seem to think their Japanese servants would just as soon poison them as not, and so they don't trust them to do the shopping. They seem to trust Japanese in western clothing even less, so we make it a point to wear traditional Japanese attire at all times. As you can see, it's paid off handsomely."

They walked in silence for a few minutes past stores and canals and residential neighborhoods. Then Michio said, "Do you know why we made it our business to learn to speak these languages? Because when Osaka was forced to open its port to the gaijin in 1866, suddenly there was plotting and planning we couldn't control because it happened in English and German, not Japanese. By the time we realized that, it was too late." He gave Kenshin a side-long look, then added, "Believe me, if we had had those skills sooner, it would have been your Katsura Kogoro swinging from a flagpole, not the standard of the imperial forces."

A tiny corner of Kenshin's mouth turned up in the slightest hint of a smile. He was being baited. He refused to be drawn in. "You were wise, then, to learn the languages," was all he said in response.

Michio smirked. No wonder Shinomori was going to bat for this former enemy—they seemed to have similar ice in their veins. "Yes, very wise. Now my sons attend the German school so that they will be fluent in that strange language. My brother's sons attend the American school. We get excellent intelligence through the chatter of the boys' schoolmates, of course."

"Of course," Kenshin said. It was becoming clear that not only did this family still harbor resentment at the outcome of the Bakumatsu, but they would also be mining his every word for information while he was staying with them. At least they were making an effort to be outwardly cordial.

They soon reached the house, a pleasantly spacious affair. There were no servants around, so Michio himself laid out a quick lunch of leftover rice and fish balls before showing Kenshin where he would be sleeping. Then Kenshin was left on his own, though for all he knew, the walls might have ears. Still, he relaxed into the silence of the house, made use of the bath, then fell exhausted onto the futon and slept.

* * *

­It was after dark when Kenshin was awakened by a knock to the shoji.

"Himura-san?" a young woman's voice called out. "We are serving dinner now."

Kenshin quickly changed into the clean set of clothes he had brought, then headed downstairs. He was just about to enter the dining room when he stopped short, for sitting at the head of the table was not just one Michio, but two. To the left was one wearing the traditional garb he had seen earlier in the day; to the right was one wearing a policeman's uniform. The two were sporting identical smirks. Then the one on the left said, "Himura-san, allow me to introduce my brother, Takeo." At Kenshin's wide-eyed silence, the smirks widened as Takeo added, "We are twins."

Twins—of course! Well, this was most disconcerting. Kenshin had met twins only once before in his life—Tae in Tokyo and Sae in Kyoto—but he had never actually seen them sitting right next to each other, like these brothers were, looking for all the world like mirror images. The rest of the family around the table started snickering, but he managed to pull himself together enough to offer a formal bow and a "Pleased to meet you."

He took the seat offered to him next to Michio and tried not to keep looking at the two brothers, but really, this was rather extraordinary!

"I'm sorry, Himura-san," Michio said, "but I couldn't resist not warning you in advance about my brother and myself. Even at our age, we do get the odd laugh when people meet us both for the first time."

"The resemblance is most striking," Kenshin admitted. "It must come in handy in your line of work."

Takeo practically spit out his food with a guffaw. "Himura-san, you have no idea!"

And so, dinner, which Kenshin feared would be a tense affair, was actually quite pleasant. Even the mother, whose chilly ki had been his first impression that morning, was affable. Then, with the end of the meal, the family left, leaving Kenshin alone with the two brothers.

As soon as the shoji closed behind the last family member, Takeo said, "I presume my brother has informed you that I have been in charge of this investigation. My informant should be here any minute to tell you what he's found, but until then, let me fill you in on the details of the man posing the threat—your associate's uncle, Nakahira Masayoshi."

Associate? It seemed strange to hear Kaoru referred to that way.

"As I'm sure you know, we were put onto the Nakahira family by the onmitsu in Tokyo, who discovered that it was the current head of the Nakahira family, this uncle Masayoshi, who hired the men who tried to defraud your associate out of her property last March. The Nakahiras are an old family who had been mid-level retainers of the Osaka Castle's military governor for many years. The father's job was as assistant chief bookkeeper for the castle's grain stores. So, they were not wealthy, but they definitely had a comfortable income.

"To make a long story short, the father arranged a socially significant marriage for his first-born son, Masayoshi, and arranged for the second brother, your associate's father, to marry his boss's daughter. The first brother had no talent with the sword and was a bookkeeper like his father. Your associate's father, however, was an assistant master at the castle's dojo by the age of sixteen, and this was to be his job, rather than bookkeeping.

"This second brother kept putting off his arranged marriage until, when he was eighteen, he was told he couldn't put it off any longer. It turns out, however, that since childhood he had been in love with the daughter of the family's gardener, so before the arranged marriage could happen, he asked the dojo master to send him to Edo to study with his master's sensei. When he left for Edo, he took the gardener's daughter with him and married her. This was in 1861. The family, of course, disowned him, but that wasn't enough to wipe away the shame of having jilted the daughter of the father's boss. There was a subsequent decline in income and status for the entire family, and the father died not long thereafter. The older son has been head of the family ever since, and he's never forgiven his brother for causing this decline."

"So, there is a long-standing grudge, and somehow he's kept tabs on his brother's affairs all these years," Kenshin said. "But why make a move now?"

"Debts," said Michio, who had been silent during the whole long story, "and the prospect of an easy mark in an orphaned niece."

At this point, Michio's wife stuck her head to announce a visitor. "Ah!" Michio said as he stood to greet his guest. "Our informant has arrived!"

The visitor entered the room and began to greet the Mizuki brothers but stopped in mid-bow to stare at Kenshin. The two men locked eyes, and suddenly time seemed to stand still. "Himura?" the man said slowly. "Is that you?"

That face—Kenshin knew that face. And that voice! Could it be? Suddenly, his mind brought forth a vision of the man who had befriended him when he first arrived in Kyoto with Katsura Kogoro, the same man who had nursed him back to health in Otsu after the terrible battle in the Forest of Barriers. Yes, this man's face was somewhat rounder with age and the hair had streaks of gray in it, but it could be no one else. "Yoshida?" Kenshin answered back tentatively.

In an instant he was on his feet, and the two men were hugging and laughing and staring at each other in amazement.

"Himura, you're alive!" Yoshida exclaimed. He held Kenshin back at arm's length to get a good look at him.

"And you, too," Kenshin said as they hugged again. The Mizuki brothers watched with knowing smirks on their faces.

"Where have you been all these years?" Yoshida demanded. "We thought you were dead! Why didn't you get in touch with us!"

"Sessha didn't want to place your family in danger."

"But where have you been?!" Yoshida demanded.

"Gentlemen!" Michio broke in. "We have business to discuss, have we not?"

"Oh, hold your horses," Yoshida said brusquely. "Can't you see we have some catching up to do? Why didn't you tell me this was your client!"

The brothers chuckled at what appeared to be a little private joke. Michio signaled to Takeo and said, "We'll give you five minutes." Then the brothers left the room.

As soon as the shoji closed behind them, Yoshida lowered his voice and said, "How could you drop off the face of the earth like that? You were like a brother to me—closer than my own brother, in fact—and to not let us know you were alive for all these years…!"

"Maa, maa," Kenshin said, trying to calm his old friend down, and he explained briefly how he had spent the last ten years as a rurouni, trying to atone for the crimes of the hitokiri. "It didn't take long," he finished, "to learn that my enemies would stop at nothing to try to harm me—sometimes even killing those who took me in. How could sessha expose your family to that kind of danger?"

"Okay, so maybe it made sense to lay low for a little while," Yoshida admitted, "but you could've sent me a coded message or something!"

Kenshin sighed. How to explain? So he said, "Over the years, didn't you find visitors at your door whose presence surprised you because of their rank? Senior military officers, perhaps? Or maybe family members of former Bakufu officials?"

"Well, now that you mention it…," Yoshida said, and he grew silent as he thought back to some visits that he never could fully explain. "There was this odd visit not long after the Boshin War from General Yamagata," he remembered, "but it seemed like just a social call—you know, sort of a 'hail-fellow-well-met' kind of thing. I thought it was a bit straonge that someone like him would look up someone like me. Heck, my only connection to him was because he came through my waystation in the mountains once or twice during the war, but now that you mention it, he did ask if I knew of your whereabouts…." Then his face went pale. "Oh my god," he said. "It was right before…."

He stopped, then took a deep breath and said, "It was right before the rumors started flying that the government was executing people who knew too much about their dirty work during the revolution. Then I heard they had executed their former top hitokiri to keep his mouth shut. Himura, we were so sure it was you they executed, and I was devastated that they could turn on you like that, after all you did for them! Of course, a few years later we heard rumors that you were alive, so we figured it wasn't you after all, but still…!"

"That was Shishio Makoto they tried to kill," Kenshin said, "but he survived the execution, unbeknownst to them."

"You don't think Yamagata-sama was looking for you to kill you, too, do you?"

"I'm not sure," he said honestly, for this news made him wonder. He had known for a long time that the government had searched for him, and he had always assumed it was in order to execute him, too, but maybe that wasn't it at all. Maybe it wasn't that they wanted to kill _him_, but to have him kill Shishio for _them_. After all, didn't that visit from Okubo Toshimichi come not long after General Yamagata found him in Tokyo? And didn't they ask him to do just that?

"And you're right," Yoshida continued. "We did have some other unusual visits, people who you'd never expect in a million years to associate with someone as inconsequential as me. Now that I think of it, there'd always be this little inquiry about that friend I used to have during the war. So, you're saying they sought me out thinking I could lead them to you?"

"It's not unlikely."

"Oh my god," he said, and once again he fell silent.

"But that's all changed," Kenshin said brightly in his best rurouni voice. "Everyone knows exactly where to find me, now that I've settled down in Tokyo!" And they certainly have done that, he thought grimly to himself.

"Where you're a private investigator or something, right? Is that your connection to this little investigation the Mizuki brothers put me onto?"

"A private what? No, no, sessha is just here on behalf of a friend—my landlady, actually," he clarified lamely.

"Landlady? Wait a minute—I was told this guy's niece was only a teenager. You mean to say a teenage girl is your landlady?" Yoshida got an odd glint in his eye. "Ohhhh, so you're actually living at this girl's place without a chaperone, is that it? You crafty little devil, you!" And he heartily pounded Kenshin's back.

"Nothing like that!" Kenshin exclaimed, his face turning red. "She took me in and gave me a home, that's all! Didn't the Mizuki brothers tell you anything?"

"Are you kidding? Those twins are a crafty bunch. They only tell you things on a need-to-know basis. I mean, it's obvious they know that you and I were good friends way back when, but did they think to tell me that the man I was doing this for was someone who was like a little brother to me? No! I wondered why they asked me to take on this investigation when there are plenty of other guys out there with better contacts than me. They must know my entire past! I'm not sure I like that notion."

The Mizuki brothers walked in as he said it, earning him a knowing little smile from Takeo. It gave Yoshida the uncomfortable feeling that maybe he needed to do a better job of hiding certain aspects of his life from now on.

"So," Takeo said, clearly relishing how uncomfortable he had just made Yoshida feel, "why don't you tell Himura-san the results of your work."

Yoshida gave a half-bow to the brothers, then turned to Kenshin and began his tale.

"Well, I've only had two weeks to work on this, but here's what I've got so far. This guy, Nakahira Masayoshi, has worked at the Municipal Registry Office for sixteen years, and for sixteen years he's belly-ached to his co-workers about how unfair it is that his good-for-nothing brother in Tokyo, who disgraced the family name by running off with the gardener's daughter, is so prosperous when the rest of the family can barely scrape by. Lucky for us, some of his co-workers are so pissed off at his constant griping that they were happy to tell me all about it.

"Well, it seems that suddenly last winter Nakahira went out and bought himself a big, fancy house. He told everyone his brother had died and left him a large inheritance, a valuable property in Tokyo. All he had to do, he said, was move his brother's bastard daughter out, and it would be his. The money-lender, he told them, was going to help him do it."

"Bastard daughter?" Kenshin exclaimed. "How dare he!"

And Kenshin claimed there was nothing between him and his so-called landlady? Not likely!

"Anyway," Yoshida continued, "his co-workers thought maybe ol' Nakahira would stop his constant belly-aching now, but a couple of months later, he started in again, complaining that now the daughter had taken in a lodger…."

"That would be me," Kenshin guessed.

"…and the lodger had blocked him from getting the title to the property. So now the money-lender was breathing down his neck because he couldn't pay off the loan. Then he told his pals the money-lender was going to send out some hypnotist who would get the lodger out of the picture…."

"Hypnotist?" Kenshin said, a puzzled look on his face. Then it dawned on him. "Not a hypnotist—Shin no Ippo! Udo Jin-e!"

Yoshida's jaw dropped. "You mean that crazy sonofabitch hitokiri with the deadly stare? I remember him. That money-lender meant business!"

The Mizuki brothers took this in dispassionately, but Kenshin could tell—this was news to them.

"It's strange," Kenshin said thoughtfully. "Udo Jin-e came to Tokyo to assassinate a government minister. Sessha was brought in by the police at literally the last minute to guard this minister. Jin-e couldn't possibly have known. Yet when this one confronted him, Jin-e said he had heard a rumor about the hitokiri with the red hair and cross-shaped scar. At the time, this one thought he only meant my reputation from the Bakumatsu, but maybe he meant the rumor of my presence in Tokyo. To think that Kaoru-dono's uncle would go to such lengths…."

Now he thought back to that battle, the battle in which he came within seconds of breaking his vow never to kill again. It was to save Kaoru from certain death that made him nearly run his blade through the defeated hitokiri, but it was Kaoru who saved _him_ by stopping him before it was too late. How great a debt he owed this young woman, he thought. "Continue," Kenshin said finally to Yoshida.

"Well, that obviously didn't work, either, because just recently Nakahira told a friend he was going to prove the daughter was defaulting on her taxes. Then all he'd have to do is pay the taxes himself and the property would be his.

"But here's the important part. All this time he was trying to get the property without having to sully his hands with the so-called bastard daughter. Now he was saying that if the tax scheme didn't work, he'd invoke the old samurai law that requires the orphan daughters of samurai to be adopted by the head of the family—him. Then he'd marry her off to one of his cronies. Once the adoption went through, of course, he'd become the sole owner of her property, and from what I gather, it's worth a pretty penny."

Kenshin sat in stunned silence. This uncle was going to force an adoption on Kaoru? "But those laws went out of existence years ago," he said. "Even sessha knows that."

Takeo leaned forward and said, "There's not a judge in the country who would prevent a head of family from taking care of an orphaned niece. Isn't that right, brother?"

Michio nodded. "Aa, unless she was already married."

Kenshin squirmed slightly and said, "Well, she's not. So, how does sessha make contact with this man? He must be stopped."

"There is one more piece of information, which we got just yesterday," Takeo said. "Thanks to Yoshida-san's excellent footwork, we managed to find out who Nakahira's money-lender is—a loan shark with yakuza connections the police have had an eye on for quite some time. So I paid him a little visit yesterday in my official capacity and took a look at his books. Turns out Nakahira's down payment on that fancy house was 100 yen—exactly the amount an army officer's family gets as a death benefit. Yoshida-san, were you able to confirm what we suspect?"

"I've alerted a friend at the Military Payroll Office. If an army death benefit was paid to anyone in Osaka, he'll be able to find the information. Meanwhile, my contact at the Municipal Registry Office says he'll spirit out the Nakahira family file tonight and have it at my house in the morning. If Nakahira did get his hands on his brother's death benefit, there might be a paper trail of some sort in the family registry file that shows how he did it."

"You think this man swindled Kaoru-dono out of her father's death benefit as well?" Kenshin blurted out in astonishment.

"We'll know for sure tomorrow when we get the file," said Yoshida. "Say, why not stay at my place tonight! We need to look through that file first thing tomorrow anyway because it has to be returned before noon."

"He stays with us," Michio said brusquely. "He is our responsibility until this affair is settled. After that, he can do whatever he wants."

"Mizuki-san, we have ten years of catching up to do! Surely you wouldn't begrudge us…."

"No."

"Fine," Yoshida said, clearly annoyed, "but tomorrow you get him to my house—early."

"Done," the twins said in unison.

Kenshin felt a bit like a piece of merchandise that had just been bartered about, but what did that matter when Kaoru's very freedom was at stake? He bowed to the Mizuki brothers and embraced his friend. "Until tomorrow, then," he said.

* * *

**Japanese Terms:**

Yakuza**:** criminal gangs.

Bakumatsu: the revolution that overthrew the shogunate.

Mt. Hiei: in case you don't remember, this was the location of Shishio's lair.

Okashira: boss.

Bakufu: the government of the shogun.

Gaijin: foreigner.

Tokugawa: the family name of the shogun.

Onmitsu: spy.

Edo: former name for Tokyo.

Shin no Ippo: Udo Jin-e's hypnotizing stare, "One Side of the Soul."

Yoshida: a character from my story _Descent into Madness_ (you don't need to know that story to understand this story).

Boshin War: The war to subdue the rest of Japan after the Battle of Toba Fushimi and the abdication of the shogun (1868-1869).

Okubo Toshimichi: the head of the Meiji government (and one of the three "fathers" of the revolution) who asks Kenshin to assassinate Shishio.

**Author's Note:** So, now we know that what originally brought Kenshin to Tokyo—the false Battousai—was really just the first part of a plot by Kaoru's uncle to steal her dojo! Wow—even Watsuki didn't know that (such power)!

I thought it would be fun to throw Kenshin into a situation where those charged with helping him don't necessarily have warm, fuzzy feelings towards him, unlike the Kyoto branch of the Oniwabanshu. Instead, it's back to guarding his ki and watching every word he says. No wonder the guy doesn't talk much!

As for the character Yoshida, here's where I reveal that his presence in this story is entirely due to my absent Co-Conspirator. Ever since I wrote _Descent into Madness_, especially after I almost killed the guy off in that story, she has been begging me to bring him back. So, for all you Yoshida fans out there, here he is! If you haven't read that story, all you need to know is that Yoshida befriended Kenshin when he first arrived in Kyoto and was like a big brother to him, and that Katsura sends him to Otsu to help Kenshin recover from his wounds.

Two historical items: First, for nearly the entire 300 years of the shogunate, a handful of places in Japan were always controlled by the shogun himself, not by daimyo. Osaka, Kyoto, and Edo were three of them. Thus, for Kaoru's father's family to have been retainers of the shogun's military governor in Osaka was a pretty big deal!

Second, I have fudged a bit about trains. Trains from Tokyo to Yokohama and Sendai were, indeed, in existence in 1878, but the train to Osaka wasn't completed for another ten years. Kenshin really should have been on a boat, but frankly, I just couldn't work in a good pirate episode. Please forgive me!!

Many thanks to 'older woman,' author of the inestimable _Ichirizuka_, for checking over this chapter.

Next time: It's Kenshin vs. uncle! And just how nefarious is this uncle? We'll see!


	5. Chapter 5

Kenshin has learned that not only is Kaoru's uncle determined to steal the dojo from her, he may also have stolen the death benefit she should have received from the army upon her father's death. Now he needs proof of the uncle's crimes before he can confront the man and stop his nefarious schemes once and for all.

**The characters:**

Mizuki Michio: tea-shop owner and co-okashira of the Osaka Oniwabanshu

Mizuki Takeo: : police officer, twin of Michio and co-okashira

Yoshida: Kenshin's old wartime friend (a character from my story _Descent into Madness)_  
Nakahira Masayoshi: Kaoru's uncle, older brother of her father

As always, acknowledgement and abject obeisance to all copyright holders, especially Watsuki Nobuhiro, who allow us to use the manga and anime for our own feeble purposes!

**Learning to Live Again**

**by**

**Conspirator**

**Chapter 5**

It was just after breakfast the next day, and Kenshin was happily free of the Mizuki household. It's not that the Mizuki family had made his stay unpleasant—actually, they had been very gracious hosts. And he would be forever grateful to the Mizuki brothers for putting him back in touch with his wartime buddy Yoshida, a reunion he was sure was no accident. It's just that his hunch that the brothers would try to pump him for information had turned out to be annoyingly accurate.

It had started as soon as Yoshida left the previous evening. Kenshin was about to thank his hosts for all their work and then turn in for the night when Michio said, "What we need now is some sake to celebrate, ne?" How could he say no? So the brothers plied him with sake and little sweet potato cakes, which he had to admit were delicious, and if it had been limited to just that, it would have been fine. Unfortunately, what the brothers really wanted to do was engage in that infuriatingly Japanese custom of asking a question without seeming to ask it at all.

The conversation had started with Takeo's observation that swordsmanship seemed to have taken a real nosedive since the government's ban on swords, which led to a discussion of how several styles of kenjutsu had already become extinct. Kenshin listened politely and made a comment or two, but then Michio tried to get him talking more by asking which styles he had found the most deadly during the Bakumatsu. "Surely, being a hitokiri at that time, you encountered many," Michio said in a seemingly nonchalant voice.

Kenshin, of course, knew the comment was anything but nonchalant. He had taken great care the entire time to mask his ki, and his hosts were doing the same, but their goal couldn't have been plainer than if the brothers had emblazoned it on a banner. It was getting late by this point, and Kenshin figured he'd never get to bed if he didn't finally jump ahead a few steps, so he went directly into a discussion of the sword style known as Nikaido Heiho—the style of the hitokiri Udo Jin-e. Outwardly, the brothers gave no indication that this information was of any more interest to them than anything else they had discussed, but Kenshin could detect that infinitesimally tiny spark in their eyes that showed that his hunch was correct—the subject of Udo Jin-e and his hypnotic Shin no Ippo technique had been the main goal of the entire conversation. After all, it was the one piece of information Kenshin had provided during Yoshida's presentation that had been news to the brothers, and he had known all along that they'd want to know more.

So, he decided to drop the little tidbit that Jin-e's string of assassinations had been at the behest of a powerful but unnamed government minister. The information came from Jin-e himself as he lay dying, and Kenshin had, of course, passed it on to Chief Uramura, but he knew that no police force—probably not the army, either—would ever have the power to investigate, let alone root out, such a malignancy in the government. In other words, it was just the kind of challenge that would appeal to the Oniwabanshu, even a branch that still resented the rise of the Meiji regime.

And his ploy had worked, for within five minutes the brothers were making their excuses to end their little soiree. It left Kenshin feeling that he had to remain on alert even in his sleep lest he inadvertently blurt something out while dreaming. How different this was from his experience at the Aoiya in Kyoto!

Little wonder, then, that he had woken up this morning in a foul mood, for sleeping while on alert is never restful. And now he had to face the decidedly unfriendly chief of the Osaka police in the hope that the man would grant him the right to wear his sword at his side. Right now the sakabatou was wrapped in his old kimono and strapped to his back, and as long as no one knew of his presence in Osaka, it was probably fine right where it was. When he went to talk to Kaoru's uncle, however, he'd want it in its proper place, more for its intimidation value, of course, than for protection. The last thing Kenshin needed was for the uncle to legitimately label him as a lawbreaker; an official police badge on the saya would solve that problem nicely.

It only took about ten minutes of walking before the massive bulk of the central police headquarters came into view. Then it was on to negotiating the labyrinth of corridors within the police station, as he had done the day before. What was it about Osakans that made them like such complexity, he wondered. Finally, he presented himself to the police chief's secretary, who this time did not make him wait forever. "Show him in," he heard a gruff voice call out almost at once.

Kenshin entered the chief's office and bowed deeply, waiting for some response to his presence. After several seconds of silence, Kenshin decided not to wait any further and said, "You wished me to return this morning."

The chief waved his hand over to a chair, then held up a telegram. "Seems your reference checks out," the chief said curtly. "Here's a badge. Put it on your saya. As of today, my force has been given your description and an order not to disturb you because of the sword. You will return the badge before you leave town, but if I hear so much as a whisper of any violence associated with you—with or without the sword—you will find things won't go easy for you, despite your friends in high places. Do we understand each other?"

"The sakabatou is for personal protection only," Kenshin answered carefully. "Sessha is sure you understand the need."

The chief gave him a withering look. What with all the hotheads he had had to deal with over the past two years, thanks to that samurai uprising in Satsuma, all he needed now was to have the country's most notorious swordsman roaming around his city. He looked again at the telegram in his hand from that pompous General Yamagata. "Trusted comrade…" "You understand his importance…" "…has not killed a soul in ten years…" Bah! He'd believe it when he saw it. "You're dismissed," he said curtly.

Kenshin gave a small military bow—he saw no need to show any more deference than that to a man this rude. Then he took the badge and started to walk out. At the door, though, he turned and said, "Sessha is, of course, aware that you attempted to have me followed yesterday."

The chief's eyes darted towards the hallway. That was supposed to be a secret...

"As sessha's sure your man has told you by now, following me is futile." And then he was gone.

"Kato, get in here!" he heard the chief bellow. He allowed himself a grim little laugh. It wasn't often that he could be so blunt. It felt oddly satisfying.

Of course, now he had to try to avoid all police, since the chief had so helpfully given his description to the entire force. Thank goodness for the hat, he thought as he jammed it down over his hair. Still, it would be prudent to take evasive action as he made his way to Yoshida's house, which was on the other side of the city. The last thing he wanted was to raise suspicions among the police about his old comrade! So, he turned down an alley and leaped to the top of the nearest building, planning to go as far as he could using the roofs as his streets.

He didn't get far. Not for nothing was Osaka known as the City of Six-Hundred-Six Bridges. He had no idea if that's how many bridges Osaka really had, but it certainly seemed like it. Every few blocks seemed to end at one canal or another, necessitating so much zigging and zagging that even he almost lost track of what direction he was going. He wished he could afford to take one of the water taxis that seemed to be everywhere, but he had to save every last coin for his trip home. His mood, which was none too good after leaving the police station, got even worse. He _really_ was not liking Osaka at all!

That's why, when he finally arrived at Yoshida's house after nearly an hour navigating the maze that was Osaska, he was surprised to find that his foul mood had somehow vanished. In fact, he felt a sense of pleasant anticipation that he hadn't felt for...well, for at least ten years. It was that feeling he used to get whenever he'd find himself assigned to guard some convoy being sent to the waystation Yoshida ran for the Ishin Shishi in the mountains outside Kyoto. These little missions would crop up every few weeks or so, and Kenshin always suspected that Katsura purposely sent him on these easy outings just as an excuse to get him into the company of his friend.

As to why these visits made a difference he had no idea, but he knew they did. Was it because Yoshida had known him since the moment he arrived in Kyoto, even before his first assassination assignment? Was it because Yoshida helped him keep his sanity when the assignments started? He knew he nearly went mad from the job when Yoshida couldn't return to Kyoto after almost losing an arm in a battle. If he hadn't met Tomoe soon after, who knows what would have happened to him? Maybe it was because when he stayed with Yoshida, he didn't have to pretend to be a hardened soldier or watch his back or live in isolation. He could just be who he was, which, in his opinion, wasn't much. Still, Yoshida and his wife Eiko never seemed to tire of having him there, never seemed to care if he only said two or three words in as many days, and he would always come away from those stays feeling like a human being again.

Well, that was way in the past—he certainly couldn't expect the same thing now. He pushed the memories back and was about to pull the bell cord when the gate suddenly opened and a woman rushed out, practically knocking him over. Kenshin, of course, had no trouble stepping out of the way, but the woman was so surprised that she tripped and dropped her string shopping bags. Kenshin quickly caught her arm to steady her.

It was Eiko herself. "Sumimasen, shinshi-san,"she started saying before she could look up. Then she did, and her jaw dropped. "Kenshin-san? I mean Himura-san! I mean—you _are_ alive! I mean—Husband!" she shouted out to the house. "It's Ototo-san! He's here!" and a huge smile spread across her face.

Ototo-san? Little brother? That had been her nickname for Kenshin all those years ago. She remembered?

Eiko was now rushing towards the house, calling out to Yoshida and beckoning to Kenshin all at the same time, but he seemed rooted to the spot. She still thought of him as Ototo?

Suddenly, there was a gentle tug on his sleeve as Eiko urged him on to the house. "Oh, Himura-san," she said happily as she hurried him to the front door, "I could hardly believe it when Husband told me last night that you were still alive, and I said I wouldn't believe it until I saw you with my own eyes, and, well, here you are!"

"Hai, still alive," Kenshin managed to say with a laugh. Eiko hadn't changed a bit in all these years—still the happy country girl he remembered from ten years ago. Formal city life seemed not to have changed her a bit. "It's good to see you, too," and he meant it.

He stopped at the doorway to slip off his zori as Eiko rushed past to find her husband. Then Yoshida emerged from a nearby room, a smile on his face, too, and a paper in his hand.

"Come in, come in," he said as he waved the paper at Kenshin. "The boxes have been here for an hour already, and wait 'till you see what I've found!"

"Husband!" Eiko whispered loudly in horror. "Where are your manners! That's no way to greet a long-lost brother!" Then she quickly turned to Kenshin and made a gracious bow, saying, "Kenshin-san, welcome to our home. It's not much, but what we have is yours!"

Kenshin blushed. He was not used to such formal welcomes, or should he say that whatever welcome there was, was usually along the lines of 'Go away!'

"Please," he said, "don't go to any trouble for this one. Sessha is just happy to see you again."

"And you, too..." she started to say, but Yoshida cut in.

"If I know Eiko, she's about to start her usual five-minute welcoming script that includes how she's unworthy of your kindness, to which you'll say you're unworthy of _her_ kindness, then she'll tell you how all our food is terrible, to which you'll say she's a great cook, so let me just save you the time—you _are_ worth it and she's a great cook!"

"Husband!" she cried out in mock protest.

"It's just that we have so little time and so much to do before we have to return all the boxes to the Municipal Registry Office," Yoshida said as he gently patted his wife's hand.

Kenshin smiled. In this little exchange he could sense the affection these two held for each other. How often could one say that two people who married for love still felt that way even after all these years? Yoshida was a lucky man.

Eiko giggled, then bowed to Kenshin and made her apologies. "I really do have to go to the market, Ototo-san—something special for you for later," she added teasingly, and then she was out the door.

That left Yoshida to take Kenshin's things, so Kenshin quickly handed him his hat and haori, then removed the wrapped sakabatou from the travel bag before handing over the bag as well. As he did, he felt a small spike in Yoshida's ki.

Of course. His friend would be curious about his weapon. After all, there had been a sword ban for nearly three years now, and who knew what kinds of tall tales Yoshida had heard about him? So as he unwrapped the weapon, he said, "Remember when you were with me in Otsu, when I told Katsura-sensei of my vow never to kill again once the war was over?"

Yoshida struggled to contain his astonishment as he said, "Aa." Seeing that infamous katana again had caused him the tiniest moment of hesitation. Had Kenshin detected it? He had forgotten how adept his old friend was at sensing things like that.

Kenshin proceeded to uncover the entire weapon, then slowly slid the blade from its sheath so Yoshida could see it.

"It's a sakabatou," Kenshin explained as he gazed at the unusual blade, "a katana with a dull edge where the cutting edge should be." Then, looking up at Yoshida, he said, "Sessha has kept that vow. No matter what you may have heard, that is the only truth," and he slid the weapon back into its sheath and held it out for Yoshida to take.

Yoshida was dumbfounded. Not that he doubted Kenshin's word, but what about all those stories he had heard over the years? Not even a kernel of truth in any of them? And to be frank, it was awfully hard to believe that a hitokiri, even a reluctant one like Kenshin, could really just never kill again, although he always hoped in his heart that he was wrong about that. "Not even in self-defense?" he asked.

"No." Then, with a hint of a smile tugging at his mouth, Kenshin added, "Though sessha may have permanently incapacitated a few people. Sessha is not a saint, after all...."

Yoshida burst out laughing. "You son of a gun! You did it!" He thumped Kenshin heartily on the back. "I'm proud of you!"

Proud? No one had ever said that to him before!

Yoshida laughed again, then placed the sword on a high shelf. "Don't look so surprised! Now, come on—we've got work to do!"

He led Kenshin to a small room filled with boxes and baskets of documents. Kenshin was somewhat taken aback. When Yoshida had said he'd get records from the Municipal Registry Office, Kenshin hadn't realized it would be so much!

"It's not as bad as it looks," Yoshida said, noting his friend's reaction. "I told my contact I needed information on the Nakahira father and two oldest sons, so he brought me the old man's entire life. I guess I should've been more specific. Anyway, I've already taken care of the father's boxes, so there's only about six or seven more to look at plus a few baskets."

Now he held out the document he had been holding when Kenshin arrived. "Here, look at this. While I was waiting for you, I found what started this whole sordid affair."

Kenshin took the paper. He was no great reader, and there were words he couldn't decipher, but most of it he could make out—it was the letter disowning the second son, Kaoru's father.

"Can you read it?" Yoshida asked as he saw Kenshin struggle with the document. "Don't worry about the kanji at the top and bottom—those are just a bunch of archaic marks showing which part of the bureaucracy signed off on the document."

" 'I, Nakahira Mamoru,' " Kenshin read out loud, " 'head of the Nakahira clan and fifth-generation descendant of Nakahira Daiki, declare that from this day forth the second-born entity known as Nakahira Kichirou is dead to the Nakahira clan. It shall be as if he had never been born, he and all his issue.' That's a bit strong, don't you think?"

"The man doesn't even call his son a person, just an entity," agreed Yoshida. "Those are some pretty hard feelings. And look at what else I found."

He spread out some more documents and pointed. "See this? This shows the father was getting a stipend of 2700 koku. He was a real big-wig. And that first son, the one who's trying to take over your friend's dojo?" He pointed to another paper. "This says he married the third daughter of the jodai's chamberlain. That chamberlain was a member of the Matsudaira clan. Probably a minor branch, but still, that's the shogun's own clan. Not just anyone marries into that family. Which explains this," and he pointed to a third paper.

Kenshin looked at it and gave a low whistle. It was a notice of demotion. The elder Nakahira's yearly stipend was reduced from 2700 koku to just 500.

"That's barely more than my own father was getting," Yoshida said, "and that's not saying much. I'll bet the older brother was demoted, too, though he might have been protected by his Matsudaira connections. No wonder the brother holds a grudge."

"And all because Kaoru-dono's father married the wrong person?"

"Well," said Yoshida, "when you jilt the daughter of your father's boss...."

Kenshin gave a short laugh. "When you put it like that...," he said. "And still, this brother thinks he has standing to inherit from his dead-to-the-family brother? That just doesn't make sense."

"No, it doesn't—unless there's a letter undoing the disowning, and that's what we're looking for. There's nothing like that in the father's boxes, so if such a letter exists, it will be in the sons' boxes. There are four boxes for the first son and three for the second son, plus a few baskets of scrolls, which isn't so bad. You can do your friend's father's documents, I'll take the older brother."

Three boxes and a few baskets?! Kenshin had thought there might be three _documents_ he'd need to look at, not three boxes! In fact, he had hoped to learn what he needed in time to confront Kaoru's uncle and be done by lunchtime!

"How is it," Kenshin asked slowly as the reality set in, "that someone who spent more than half his life in Tokyo has such a paper trail in Osaka?"

Yoshida chuckled. "Listen, my friend, no matter what you thought of the Bakufu, they were masters at bureaucracy. A samurai child was born? There's an official document. Naming ceremony? Another official document. Engaged? Married? Had a kid? Owed a debt? You get the picture—more documents. And if that samurai happened to move to another han, he of course had to carry an official travel document from his daimyo that he had to turn in to the proper authorities when he arrived, right? From that time on, anything that got registered in the new han, good or bad, would be copied and sent to the old han as well and vice versa—duplicate files! From the number of boxes here for your friend's father...."

"Her name is Kaoru—Kamiya Kaoru," Kenshin said.

"Right—for Kamiya Kaoru's father, then—I'd say her father checked in with the Tokyo authorities when he arrived. It was still Edo back then, of course, but from that time on the bureaucracy in that city sent copies of every official record right back to Osaka."

Kenshin groaned. He really did have to look through all those boxes and baskets! "So what specifically are we looking for? Sessha is not a fast reader...."

Yoshida glanced sharply at him at the 'sessha', making Kenshin suddenly squirm.

"Sumimasen," Kenshin said quickly with an apologetic bow, "it's just that this one has been a rurouni for so long...."

Yoshida glared at him sternly. "You know, I thought I heard you call yourself 'sessha', but it was so inappropriate coming from you that I thought I heard wrong." At Kenshin's look of astonishment, he added, "Yes, it was inappropriate. I mean, why would you consider yourself unworthy, especially around me? I still remember the day you arrived in Kyoto, with that big sword and that squeaky little kid's voice! There's probably no one else alive besides me who knew you that long ago!"

That startled Kenshin. Yoshida was right. There probably wasn't anyone left who knew him even before he became a hitokiri—except Hiko, of course.

"Sessha—I mean, I...."

Yoshida chuckled at his friend's discomfort. "Forget it," he said, then pushed some boxes towards him. "Here. These contain the official life history of your Kaoru-san's father. I'll plow through his older brother's papers. What we need now is some kind of proof that either the older brother is entitled to inherit from his disowned younger brother or proof that he isn't."

"Not to mention that military death benefit you say he might have stolen."

"Right. I know for a fact that every soldier in the Army has to sign a next-of-kin statement. You can bet your landlady's—I mean Kaoru-san's—father knew he had been disowned, and I'm betting he held no good feelings towards his family"

Now Yoshida turned to start rifling throught his set of papers, so Kenshin took a deep breath and made the plunge himself. Nakahira Kichirou—that was Kaoru's father's original name? It occurred to him that he didn't even know the full name her father took as Kamiya. What else didn't he know about Kaoru's family? He suddenly realized that she had probably told him as much about her background as he had told her about his—next to nothing. He wondered if she even knew she was a descendant of a once-prominent family.

He started digging into the first box—too early. There was a birth certificate; Kaoru's father apparently was born only a few years before Kenshin himself. There was a record of the boy's entrance at age eight to a school to learn the family business of bookkeeping, various achievements during Boys Day sporting events, a notation about where to find a marriage agreement in the box of his father...

Kenshin was about to call it quits with this box when he found something much more interesting—the boy's enrollment in the castle's official dojo at age twelve. The style, not surprisingly, was Kogen Itto-ryu, one of the two official styles of the Bakufu. He riffled through the rest of the papers looking for something he suspected would be there, and he quickly found it—a document certifying that Nakahira Kichirou, now a fifteen-year-old, had reached the level of shihondai. Attached to the document was a second—official confirmation from the jodai that the boy would not become a bookkeeper like the rest of his family, but would be assigned permanently to the castle dojo instead.

Now information seemed to come more quickly. Almost directly after these documents he found a note referring to an official letter in the grandfather's box asking for a marriage date to be set. Then the final document of the box—approval from the Osaka jodai himself to send the boy to Edo to study swordsmanship.

Kenshin had never been terribly devoted to reading, especially not dry bureaucratic records, but now he couldn't wait to see what the next box held, and his curiosity was well-rewarded. It wasn't just the first document that caught his attention—a confirmation that the boy had arrived in Edo, along with a cook named Kazuko and her daughter Keiko. It was what came next—a notice of enrollment at the official dojo of Edo Castle to study with its master, Kotaka Uranosuke Yoshisada. Kenshin stared at the document for so long that Yoshida turned and said, "What?"

Kenshin showed him the document. "Have you ever heard of Kotaka Uranosuke Yoshisada?" Kenshin asked. "Even in Kyoto I knew that name, though he lived in Edo. He is—was—considered one of the greatest swordsmen of the Bakufu, the reigning master of Kogen Itto-ryu. Going to Edo was no mere ploy to elope with the gardener's daughter—the jodai himself must have been expecting great things from Kaoru-dono's father."

"Then her father was a baka," Yoshida said. "No offense, but if the jodai sends you off to study with that famous a swordsmen and then you dump an arranged marriage for a gardener's daughter? Well, what was he thinking?! That's not just an affront to his own family, but to the jodai himself, and that's a pretty powerful enemy to have!"

Kenshin bristled at Yoshida's comment, but he did have a point. "So if the Osaka jodai is from the same clan as the Edo jodai and Kaoru-dono's father makes an enemy of the Osaka jodai, how is it that he wasn't banished from Edo when he married?"

"Here, let me look through that box with you," Yoshida said, for now his curiositywas piqued as well.

Kenshin laid out the next several documents for both to see. Yoshida was clearly used to working with these bureaucratic records, for in less than a second his finger flew to an insignificant-looking piece of paper, one that Kenshin probably would have overlooked—a notice informing the Osaka registry that Nakahira Kichirou and a girl named Keiko had been married by a Shinto priest just weeks after their arrival.

"Keiko?" Kenshin repeated. He looked back at the arrival document he had just put back in the box: "Nakahira Kichirou arrived 3rd day of 3rd month, Bunkyo 1. Attended by cook Kazuko, aged 42, and maid Keiko, aged 16. Documents in order."

"Look," he said, showing it to Yoshida. "It must be the same Keiko, and I'll bet this Kazuko is her mother. The mother must have known all along that they'd marry once they reached Edo. She must have approved."

"Then they were all baka," Yoshida said, "because here's the letter banishing him. Look at the order of banishment—Edo and Osaka both. He could never go home again, and they wouldn't be too welcome, either. What were they thinking?"

But Kenshin wasn't listening, for now a different document had caught his eye. "Am I reading this right?" he asked. "Is this the kanji that means 'adoption'?"

Yoshida took the paper and scanned it. "Wow," was all he could muster.

It was slow going, but Kenshin managed to plow through the entire document: 'I, Kamiya Koshi, menkyo kaiden of Kogen Itto-ryu, Edo Castle Dojo, do hereby officially adopt Nakahira Kichirou as my own son. From this day forth, he will be known as Kamiya Koshijirou and will have all rights of position and inheritance.' It was dated just three weeks after Kaoru's father arrived in the city.

"Wow," Kenshin echoed. Kaoru's father must have been some swordsman, even at eighteen, for he had no doubt that this adoption was arranged by the great Kotaka himself to keep the boy from being banished.

"Here, take a look at this," Yoshida said when Kenshin put down the document. "It's your Kaoru-san's birth certificate. And look at this one—it looks like Kamiya Koshi split from his master a few years later to start his own place."

Kenshin looked at the documents. Everything was marked Nakahira-Kamiya, but yes, that was Kaoru's birthdate on the certificate, noting that she was the child of Koshijirou and Keiko, but what really gave him a start was a notice stating that Kaoru's father was moving with his adopted father to the new Kamiya Kogen Itto-Ryu dojo. The dojo's address? The same as Kaoru's dojo. "This is where we live," Kenshin said in surprise.

"Hah! So your friend's father must have inherited his adopted father's dojo at some point!" Yoshida exclaimed. "It's becoming clear to me now! The kid arrives in Edo, the great Itto-ryu practitioner Kotaka decides he's some kind of prodigy—must've been something like you, in fact—and convinces his second-in-command Kamiya Koshi to adopt him to keep him from being banished. He probably didn't count on the kid leaving the dojo with his adopted father, I'll bet. Here, keep looking through Kamiya's box, I'll keep looking in his brother's. Somewhere in this mess there's got to be what we're looking for."

Kenshin once again plowed into the documents. Most were unremarkable, except for a call-up notice from the Edo jodai for military service. It was from the summer of Genji II.

Genji II? The summer of 1864? A cold shiver ran through him. That was the summer of Choushu's disastrous assault on the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, the assault that caused the Ishin Shishi to scatter to the winds and caused Kenshin and Tomoe to flee to Otsu. Kaoru's father must have been part of the massive force the Bakufu sent to stop Choushu. Kenshin, of course, had fought in that battle. If Kaoru's father had somehow crossed his path, Kenshin undoubtedly would have cut him down....

"What's wrong this time?" Yoshida asked as he felt a strange chill creep into the room.

"Nothing," Kenshin said in a soft voice. "It never happened."

"What never happened?" but there was no response. "Oh, never mind. Anything yet from the Nakahiras taking Kamiya back into the family?"

Kenshin pulled himself back to the present. "No, not yet. You?"

"This uncle is a real piece of work," Yoshida said. "His wife's family kept him from being demoted too badly and got him his job at the samurai registry, which of course is now the municipal registry. So as petty a bureaucrat as he is, he keeps filing all these certificates of minor promotions, as if anyone cares. Then there are loan papers—he's had lots of loans in his lifetime, that's for sure—and house sales and children's births. God, the man is boring!"

Kenshin pursed his lips, for even if the papers he was looking at were boring, it was at least a glimpse into a past that probably even Kaoru didn't know. He was even getting better at figuring out which documents he could ignore and which warranted a second look. And so the two men plowed on in silence until, after many more minutes of sifting through the papers, Kenshin struck paydirt. "Yoshida, look at these!" he cried out, and he laid down three documents for him to see.

The first was a another military call-up notice, this time from the new Meiji government, dated Meiji 1. Given the date, he guessed it was related to the fighting in Aizu against hold-out Bakufu forces—the Boshin War. The second, dated not four months later, was a death certificate for Kamiya Keiko, Kaoru's mother—pneumonia, the certificate said.

But it was the third document that was most important—a letter from Kaoru's uncle, dated May 1868. "I, Nakahira Masayoshi," it said, "head of the Nakahira clan and sixth-generation descendant of Nakahira Daiki, do hereby declare that my brother, Nakahira Kichirou, is welcomed back into the Nakahira clan, with all rights to position and inheritance as before; he and all his issue."

Yoshida looked at the letter, then quickly started rummaging through his own boxes. "Here's the copy from Masayoshi's own box," he said. He brought it over to compare to the one in Kenshin's box. "You know, there's something not quite right about this, though I can't put my finger on it.... Still, that's the letter we've been looking for, so maybe the uncle _was _entitled to inherit the dojo after all."

"No," Kenshin said, "that can't be. Kaoru-dono told me unequivocally that she had no relatives. I still remember her words—her father told her it was just him and her against the world, and now it was only her. Anyway, if the uncle did have a legitimate claim, why go to such lengths to force her out?"

Kenshin and Yoshida looked at each other. Something underhanded was definitely afoot. They could feel it.

Now Kenshin found a transfer of the dojo's title to Kaoru's father, dated Meiji 2—the adopted father, Kenshin guessed, perhaps had been killed in the Boshin War. Then her father's discharge papers from the army, also dated Meiji 2. So, Kaoru, who would have been around seven, was left alone between her mother's death and her father's return from the war. Was the adoptive Kamiya family taking care of her all that time? Then, from Meiji 4, a change of name for the dojo, from Kamiya Kogen Itto-ryu to Kamiya Kasshin-ryu. Yes, he remembered Kaoru telling him that her father was so horrified by the slaughter of the Boshin War that he created his new katsujin-ken style—the sword that gives life. Then the call-up notice dated 1877 to fight the Satsuma Rebellion and the notice of his death on the battlefield later that year. But what was this behind it?

Kenshin picked up the paper, stared at it, then crushed it in his hand. Yoshida started as he felt an ominous tingle rise up his spine, a sensation of imminent danger that he hadn't experienced since his days as a swordsman long ago. He turned to find Kenshin rigid as a statue, his eyes glowing the color of amber—the color he remembered from the one time he had witnessed Kenshin in action as a hitokiri. "Himura?" he said tentatively.

Kenshin stuck his arm out mechanically, his eyes fixed straight ahead. Yoshida carefully extracted the now crumpled piece of paper from his hand.

"It's a death certificate," Kenshin said in a low, dangerous voice. "For Kamiya Kaoru. Drowning, it says. January of 1878...."

"What the...?" Yoshida looked at the certificate, turned it over, held it up to the light, looked at it again. "It's a fake, of course."

"Of course."

Suddenly, Yoshida was tearing through Kenshin's box until he found the letter from 1868 bringing Kaoru's father back into the Nakahira family. He held the two side by side, then showed them to Kenshin.

"Do you see what I see? Look at the paper, look at the ink color, look at everything about them. These were written at the same time by the same person!" He grabbed the military call-up notice dated Meiji 1 from Kenshin's box. "Look! The call-up notice is written on old-fashioned paper, but the letter's written on cheap Western paper even though they're both from the same year!"

"So?"

"So, there _was_ no cheap Western paper back then! If this letter really was from 1868, it would've been on the old-fashioned paper, which is next to impossible to get nowadays. Not only that, it's dated 1868—no one was using the Western years until 1873. Now I know what wasn't right about that letter!"

Kenshin turned a suspicious gaze onto his friend. "And you know all this how?"

"Because I don't just work as an interpreter—I'm with military intelligence, that's how!"

Kenshin's eyes went flat. Military intelligence? Of course. Why should he be surprised? After all, wasn't Yoshida in the employ of the Mizuki brothers? Out of instinct, he covered his ki, but just as quickly he caught himself. What did it matter anymore if the military—or anyone else, for that matter—knew about him? Even the head of the entire Japanese army knew where to find him, for heaven's sake, not to mention every looney left over from the Bakumatsu. And wasn't this fake death of Kaoru's orchestrated even before she met him? Still....

"Himura, it's industrial espionage I do, not real spying," Yoshida said quickly as he sensed the change in his friend's ki.

Kenshin looked back at him. Industrial espionage? What the heck was that? This world was changing way too fast for him, except for the one thing that never seemed to change—people he cared about always seemed to be marked for death, even if that death was fake. He sighed, and the amber disappeared from his eyes. This new life he was taking on—living openly and letting people get close to him— was proving much more difficult to navigate than he expected.

"Surely you guessed I was more than just an interpreter!" Yoshida said. "Damn those Mizuki brothers! They had no business keeping you there last night, not when we had so much to catch up on!"

Kenshin smiled ruefully. "It's not that. It's just that I spent so many years trying to avoid notice, especially by the police and the military, and now that everybody knows who and where I am, well, it's just difficult for me."

He sat silently for another moment, then said, "That's why we must finish this work quickly. I'm making no attempt to hide my presence here, so the longer I wait to confront Kaoru-dono's uncle, the more chance he'll hear that I'm in Osaka. Without the element of surprise on my side, I fear that a talk with him will not be enough."

"You only planned to talk to this character?"

"Well, I do have my sakabatou, but I was hoping it would be more for its intimidation value than, shall we say, its usual purpose. Anyway, I promised Kaoru-dono there would be no fighting...."

Now the shoji opened slightly. It was Eiko, and she looked worried. Giving a quick nod to Kenshin, she hurriedly whispered in her husband's ear, then handed him a newspaper and an envelope before silently disappearing. "Kuso," Yoshida muttered when he opened the newspaper.

"What?" Kenshin said. "What's happened?"

Yoshida just waved him quiet as he proceeded to read the letter. "I knew it," he said under his breath. Then he turned to Kenshin and said, "The letter's from my contact in the Military Payroll Office. Nakahira showed them the fake death certificate for your Kaoru-san along with a copy of the letter accepting her father back into the Nakahira family. They paid him the death benefit on the spot. The newspaper, however...," and with a grim look he handed it to Kenshin.

"Infamous Hitokiri Nabs Train Robbers!" the headline screamed. "Legendary Battousai Disappears into City!" the second headline read. "Slaughter Avoided!" read the third.

" 'Slaughter Avoided,' " muttered Kenshin disgustedly. He threw down the paper. He should be used to it by now, the popular assumption that if he were involved in something, then slaughter was a given, but even now, ten years on, those assumptions pierced him like no sword ever could.

Yoshida picked up the paper and read the first few paragraphs. "Is any of this true?" he asked as he read.

"Sessha traveled here as an extra security guard to help protect a bank shipment," Kenshin explained, slipping back into his old rurouni way of referring to himself. "Sessha was asked by the chief of Tokyo police to do this. The chief knew this one didn't have the money to take the train to Osaka, so he offered me the job. And this one did capture the robbers—by knocking them out, not killing them! 'Slaughter avoided?'" He sighed. "Well, of course people would assume...."

For the first time, Yoshida started to understand what his friend had tried to explain to him the previous evening, that no matter what Kenshin did or said, people would never let him get beyond his past.

"It must have been the soldiers guarding that shipment with me who spread the story," Kenshin continued. "They didn't know who I was until I was leaving and their captain told them. Kuso!"

"So much for the element of surprise," agreed Yoshida. "So what now? You can bet Nakahira's seen the newspaper, or if he hasn't yet, then his yakuza buddies have."

"I promised Kaoru-dono there would be no fighting," Kenshin repeated, "so I still intend to try to resolve this by just talking to the man."

"Well, I hope you're right because the way I see it, this uncle is a truly nasty piece of work. I mean, let's look at the evidence. Forgeries, for one thing. That's pretty premeditated. I'll bet Nakahira wasn't counting on someone like me coming across them, someone with the background to understand exactly what he'd done. It's obvious that he whipped up this letter taking his brother back into the family as soon as he heard his brother was killed last year. And he didn't just backdate the letter to the beginning of Meiji, when lots of families were reconciling—he made it look like he waited until after the wife died, the wife that had caused the rift to begin with. Then he used his position at the municipal registry to slip the letter into the appropriate spot in his brother's records and, even worse, used his connections to get a blank death certificate from Tokyo so he could forge that, too. And then to have the nerve to walk right up to the Military Payroll Office and steal an orphan's death benefit? That's a crime punishable by execution! I'm telling you, the man has ice in his veins."

Kenshin shook his head. "No, he's a coward through and through—he's just petrified of crossing his yakuza money-lender. If he had any courage, do you think he would be using all these subterfuges to defraud Kaoru-dono instead of just killing her outright? No, he won't want to fight me."

"But his yakuza buddies might."

"What would you have me do, then?"

"You weren't planning to go alone, were you? Don't. Take me with you. I may have lost the ability to wield a sword, but I've made up for that by learning a particularly effective kempo that relies on kicks more than the arms. Judo, it's called, from the Southern Kingdom. Some Satsuma men taught it to me during the war, and there's a master at the main Army base who trains a couple of us every week. I've nearly reached the top level...." and at this, Yoshida rose and performed several vicious kicks in quick succession.

"You may be right," admitted Kenshin, "but this one will not fight unless attacked first. Anyway, my style is designed for one to fight off many."

Yoshida stared hard at him. "You think I'm not up to this, don't you!"

"No, no!" Kenshin started to say, but Yoshida cut him off.

"Listen, I know you probably don't need the help, and lord knows that back in the day I probably would've been more of a hindrance to you than a help, but let's be honest here. Do you know your way around Osaka? No. Do you know how to use the canals for defensive purposes? No. I do, plus I've got a lot more skill at judo than I ever did with a katana. If you're really serious about not being a rurouni anymore, then you've got to start acting like you're not a rurouni anymore, and that means placing some trust in other people!"

Kenshin just stared at his old friend. Yoshida was right, of course, and not just about needing his friend's knowledge of the city. Learning to trust other people? Wasn't that the very same thing Sano told him after they returned to Tokyo from defeating Shishio? He bowed his head in recognition of this truth.

"Yoshida," he said, "you always did give me wise counsel. You're right, you should come with me. We need to find Nakahira right away, before he hears of my presence in the city and tries to run."

"Okay. Assuming he hasn't heard the news yet, he'll be at his desk at the Municipal Registry Office. You can confront him there. I doubt he'd try anything in front of his co-workers. And if he's not there, I know where he lives."

In a flash Kenshin was on his feet and heading for the shoji, barely concealing a wince at the pain the sudden movement caused to his recently healed stomach wound. Yoshida grabbed his arm to hold him back.

"Just give me a minute. I need to tell Eiko that all the boxes are ready to go back to the Municipal Registry Office—my contact needs to return them when everyone's gone for lunch. Then give me time to put on my army uniform—for its intimidation value, as you put it."

"And I need to put the official badge I got from the Osaka police chief on my saya," Kenshin said. "That should carry some weight with this man, too."

"You got an official badge? Good thinking. After all, it wouldn't do to get all the way over there and then have some policeman arrest you for carrying an illegal sword!"

The two clasped arms, then headed out of the room. Perhaps this little adventure would be over quickly after all, though now he wasn't sure he wanted to return to Tokyo so fast. Surely, he could afford one extra day in Osaka to visit with the man who was still like a brother to him.... He pushed the thought from his head. One thing at a time, he reminded himself, and that one thing was saving Kaoru from her unscrupulous uncle.

_______________________________________________________________________

Japanese Terms:

saya: sword sheath.

kenjutsu: general term for art of the sword.

Bakumatsu: the civil war that overthrew the Shogun.

Shin no Ippo: Udo Jin-e's hypnotizing stare, "One Side of the Soul."

General Yamagata: the founder and supreme commander of the modern Japanese army.

sumimasen: please forgive me

shinshi: gentleman

haori: a short warm coat

Gomen nasai: "Please pardon me."

Bakufu: the shogun's military government.

Daimyo: the name for the feudal rulers of Japanese domains. They were replaced by governors after the fall of the shogun.

Han: term for the feudal clan or domain ruled by a daimyo.

Kanji: In Japanese writing, the characters based on Chinese characters.

Koku: unit of rice equivalent to five bushels (180 liters). This, rather than actual money, was how daimyo paid their retainers.

Jodai: The official appointed by the shogun to govern Osaka and defend Osaka Castle. Osaska was one of three cities directly controlled by the shogun, not a daimyo, and the jodai was usually a member of the shogun's own clan, the Matsudaira.

Shihondai: assistant master.

Kotaka Uranosuke Yoshisada: a real person. He was considered the finest Kogen Itto-ryu practitioner of the late Edo period and was an official of the Edo Hasshu Mimawari-gumi, the shogunate's special police force.

Baka: idiot.

Bunkyo 1: How the year 1861 would have been denoted by the Japanese (first year of the reign of the emperor Bunkyo).

Menkyo kaiden: term meaning one who holds a "license of total transmission." It is a certificate granted by a school certifying that the recipient is licensed to pass on all aspects of his training.

Meiji I: 1868.

katsujin-ken: swordsmanship that does not take a life.

kuso: a choice expletive.

yakuza: Japanese "mafioso."

kempo: general term for martial arts that don't involve using a weapon.

Southern Kingdom: Okinawa.

Author's Note: This has been an extraordinarily difficult chapter to write, which is why it's been a year since I've posted. Poor 'older woman' –she so graciously plowed through two previous iterations, and just when she thought she was done, she found out there was yet one more! Arigatou gozaimasu!!

At any rate, I know I promised that Kenshin would meet with the evil uncle in this chapter, but he was having too much fun learning about Kaoru's family's past. Considering that this story was prompted by my infamous Co-Conspirator, who can't stand Kaoru, this was quite a surprise! But now the stage is set for the confrontation. I hope it doesn't take another year to post that chapter!

About Osaka's many canals, if you've been there you're probably wondering what I'm talking about. According to Frommer's travel site (my bible), the city was the Venice of Japan until World War II, when it was bombed into oblivion. When the city rebuilt, they paved over most of the canals. Before then, however, it really was known as the City of Six-Hundred-Six Canals, although there weren't that many canals in the city. So why the number six-hundred-six? Apparently, to the medieval Japanese mind, that number was considered so huge that nothing could be bigger than that—in other words, their old-fashioned version of 'infinite.'

Next chapter: the uncle is confronted!


	6. Chapter 6

Kenshin finally meets Kaoru's nefarious uncle, Nakahira Masayoshi.

**The characters:**

Mizuki Michio: tea-shop owner and co-okashira of the Osaka Oniwabanshu

Mizuki Takeo: police officer, twin of Michio and co-okashira

Yoshida: Kenshin's old wartime friend (a character from my story _Descent into Madness)_  
Nakahira Masayoshi: Kaoru's uncle, older brother of her father

All hail Watsuki Nobuhiro, the ultimate copyright holder to whom even Sony, Viz, Jump, and probably dozens more, have to bow (as I must bow to them).

**Learning to Live Again**

**by **

**Conspirator**

**Chapter 6**

Kenshin and Yoshida were leaning back against some sacks of tea on the covered boat the Mizuki brothers had sent earlier that day to the dock near Yoshida's house. It was only midday, but the daylight was weak due to low clouds and an intermittent drizzle. Despite wearing the warm haori Kaoru had given him from her father, the damp went right through Kenshin, and he shivered.

"So," Yoshida said once they were in the middle of the canal, "how are you planning to confront Nakahira?"

"I have a feeling he won't be at his office," Kenshin responded.

"And if he is?"

Kenshin's eyes darted questioningly towards the boatman.

"He's one of Mizuki-san's men, totally trustworthy," Yoshida said. When Kenshin still didn't respond, Yoshida lowered his voice and added, "I don't know what you know about the Mizukis, but does the name Oniwabanshu mean anything to you? The spymasters of the shogun?"

"Aa."

"Well, the Mizuki family is Oniwanbanshu–the entire staff of that tea shop is Oniwabanshu. Did you know that?"

"Yes, but I couldn't be sure _you_ knew."

Yoshida leaned in closer. "Actually, I'm not supposed to know, but because I'm with military intelligence, I do know, but they don't know that I know..." Suddenly a thought occurred to him. "Wait a minute. Do they know that I know but think I don't know that they know? But that would mean they know I'm with military intelligence, but they're not supposed to know..."

Kenshin started to chuckle.

"What?"

"I think you're getting lost in your own conspiracy theories," Kenshin said as he tried unsuccessfully to stifle a smile.

"Well, maybe, but the bottom line is this-the boatman is totally trustworthy. So, what's your plan?"

Kenshin sat up now and looked across the canal, thinking.

"_If_ Nakahira's in his office," he finally said, "that means he hasn't seen the newspaper yet. He won't be expecting us, so we ask to speak with him right there. I'll tell him what we know, order him to cease and desist, and have him take us to his house immediately to collect the hundred yen he owes Kaoru-dono. Otherwise, I'll tell him I'll take my information to the authorities. With his coworkers around, he'll be in no position to make a scene."

"And if he's not there?"

"We go to his house. But Yoshida, I really do intend only to talk to him–no fighting."

They were quiet again as the boatman steered them through a combination of open canals and covered warehouse tunnels. If it weren't for the damp cold and the unpleasant task he was facing, Kenshin might have enjoyed the sensation of gliding lazily through the water to the sound of the gentle slaps of the boatman's pole.

Yoshida, on the other hand, now had the chance to really take in his friend, and what he saw concerned him. Yes, it had been ten years since he had seen Kenshin last, but should his friend really look this pale? And although his friend seemed to be relaxing in his own way, his face had that pinched look that comes from trying to ignore constant pain. Yoshida had been so busy this morning racing through the papers that he hadn't really noticed anything. Was Kenshin not well? It would be just like him to hide something like that. "Himura," he finally said, "are you feeling alright?"

"What?" Kenshin sat up again, barely suppressing a wince. "Yes, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"It's just that...well, you look awfully pale."

"It's the red hair," he said. "It always makes me look pale."

But Yoshida wasn't convinced. Maybe later he'd have his wife Eiko speak with him. Her father had been a doctor. She'd know.

In less than fifteen minutes, the boat pulled up to a dock in an area Kenshin recognized-the district that contained police headquarters. Clearly, boats were the way to travel in Osaka. That same trip in reverse had taken him over a half-hour to walk!

Yoshida whispered a few instructions to the boatman, then disembarked with Kenshin and started walking towards the main street. They had only gone one block when Kenshin stopped him. "Yakuza," he said.

Yoshida quickly followed Kenshin into the shadow of a building. "Where?"

"Up ahead, by that big building. I can sense them. Four, maybe five."

Yoshida looked ahead. Despite the raw drizzle, the streets were packed with pedestrians. "Which ones are they? There are an awful lot of people around..."

"I can't see them all, but for sure the one standing by the door rolling a cigarette, the one on the corner hawking baskets. There's another one on the other side of the intersection whittling..."

"You can't see them all but you know they're there?"

Kenshin's eyes remained riveted on the building up ahead. "It's the quantity of dangerous ki that tells me, even if the eyes can't see them."

Even after all these years Yoshida knew better than to question Kenshin's instincts. "Well, that building you're looking at is the one we're headed for—the Municipal Registry Office. What do you suggest we do?"

"The question is, are they just there or are they there because of us?" Kenshin thought for a moment, then said, "Even if they're there because of us, they won't be looking for someone in a military uniform and a short guy with a farmer's hat on his head."

"You don't think the sword won't be a dead giveaway?"

Kenshin had already placed his saya in his obi, but now he pulled it out and slipped it back into the holder on his back. No point in riling anyone up. "Now we shouldn't have any trouble entering the building. Leaving, of course, might be a different matter. I hope your judo is in good form."

Yoshida patted the tonfa he had thought to tuck into his belt; he had become quite expert with it, thanks to his judo training. "You let me worry about that," he said. "Listen, I know how this place operates. Let me do all the talking. With luck, dealing with a surly desk clerk will be the only difficult part."

Kenshin suppressed a small smile. Ah, bureaucracy...

They continued walking now,Yoshida first, then Kenshin several lengths behind to make it look like he was just a random pedestrian. He watched the yakuza scrutinize Yoshida as he walked into the building. That was no ordinary curiosity they were showing—they were there for a purpose. When he, too, walked up to the building, he could feel their eyes boring into him and could feel the rustling of suspicion because of the sword on his back. Still, they made no move, and he gave no hint that he suspected anything.

The building was old, maybe a hundred years or more, and clearly a leftover from the days when the shogun's family, the Matsudaira, ruled Osaka as military governors. Then, the Municipal Registry was called the Samurai Registry, and its contents were obviously considered very important, for the building clearly was constructed with defense in mind. No wide, welcoming door here! Rather, the entrance had a heavy, narrow door with a small, open eye slit. Just inside was an alcove on each side that at one time presumably was used by guards, but now just held some empty boxes. This entryway let out into a long, low-ceilinged hallway barely two persons wide, purposely narrow and low so that no one could possibly draw a sword before entering the main hall. Kenshin placed his sakabatou back in his obi, then walked silently down the long passageway. There had been similar buildings in Kyoto; none of them had prevented him from carrying out his appointed tasks. He easily found a shadowed corner in the main hall and slipped in silently to watch and listen.

Yoshida was already standing impatiently at the main desk. The clerk had apparently just taken in a shipment of records and was studiously ignoring him. Finally, Yoshida cleared his throat loudly and, using a fake name, said, "Watanabe Hiro here to see the head of accounting, Nakahira Masayoshi."

Without even looking up, the clerk said, "Public's not allowed for another two hours."

"Well, I'm not the public," said Yoshida as he flashed the fake identification papers he used when working for military intelligence.

The clerk looked at the document, then at Yoshida. Military police, it said? What business did those blood-suckers have here? Hadn't they punished Osaka enough already for the city's sympathy for the samurai uprising last year? The man glared at Yoshida and said, "Well, he's not here."

"On a workday?" Yoshida said pointedly. "You do know that withholding information from a police inquiry, even a military one, is a criminal offense."

The clerk gave him an insolent look, then said, "Well, you're just out of luck. Nakahira-sama left not more than fifteen minutes ago. An emergency at home, he said."

The clerk was about to turn back to his work and ignore Yoshida again, but then a thought occurred to him. "I don't suppose this has anything to do with that hitokiri who's supposedly in Osaka?" The man looked right and left before saying in a conspiratorial tone, "Because that's why Nakahira-sama's bodyguards came for him. They say he's the hitokiri's target. But then, I don't suppose the military would care about that..."

Kenshin had just taken off his hat and was peering back down the hallway towards the front door. Although it was the slightest of movements, it caught the clerk's eye. Seeing the red hair and the sword at Kenshin's side, the man suddenly gasped, then pointed and stuttered, "H-h-him! He—he's the hitokiri!" He suddenly grabbed the front of Yoshida's jacket and croaked in fear, "It's him! It's the hitokiri! The one in the newspaper!"

Yoshida slapped the man's hand away and snapped, "He's no hitokiri—he's got a police badge, you idiot." Turning to Kenshin, he called out, "Himura! Show him your badge!"

Kenshin reluctantly emerged from the shadows and held up his saya with the badge, then slipped back into the darkness.

"Now," said Yoshida, leaning into the clerk's terrified face, "tell me what the hell's going on."

The clerk had turned into a quivering mass of blubber. "I...I...I don't know! All I know is, these bodyguards came about a half-hour ago and said there was an emergency, that Nakahira-sama's life was in danger and he had to leave right away! I swear, that's all I know!"

Yoshida stared another few seconds into the man's eyes, then straightened up and said, "I'll believe you for now, but if I find out you're lying..."

"No, I swear, teichou-sama, it's the truth!"

Yoshida muttered, "Bah!" then turned on his heel and strode over to Kenshin, who had his head cocked to listen down the hallway.

In a low voice the clerk couldn't hear, Kenshin said, "While you were talking, someone from outside came into the entrance hall and was listening to what you were saying. I was just edging over to get a better idea of what's going on when the clerk saw me. I'm pretty sure now that there are two men out there, one in each alcove, waiting to attack us when we reach the end of the hallway."

"Two? You're sure?"

"As sure as I can be. The second one must have come in while I was showing my saya to the clerk."

"Well, you're the expert on situations like this," Yoshida said. "You have a plan?"

A grim smile crept across Kenshin's mouth. Yes, he was an expert at this, wasn't he? "I can get down that hallway without them hearing me. Let me go alone. It'll only take me a second to deal with both of them. Then meet me at the door."

Kenshin made it sound so simple, but Yoshida knew that just walking down the hall noiselessly was, by itself, nearly impossible. At least, he knew _he _could never do it. And how was Kenshin going to take care of both men when it was virtually impossible to draw a sword in that low hallway? Still, he nodded his head in agreement, then watched as his friend walked like a shadow down the long, narrow hall.

Suddenly, he saw Kenshin bound forward between the two alcoves. He thought he saw his friend start to pull out his sword horizontally, but how could that be? No room! Then came two pained grunts and the sound of boxes tumbling down, and the next thing he knew, there were two unconscious men on the floor with Kenshin standing between them, sword firmly back in his saya. The clerk was standing now, shouting at Yoshida to find out what was going on. "Official business!" Yoshida yelled back as ran down the hallway to Kenshin.

"How did you knock them out?" he asked incredulously as he reached the alcoves. "You couldn't possibly have drawn your sword before they saw you!"

"I didn't draw it," Kenshin answered, as if anyone could have figured it out. "I simply slid my sakabatou out just enough to hit the one on the left with the hilt and one on the right with the saya," and he demonstrated the technique.

"Effective," Yoshida murmured approvingly as he stared at the two unconscious men.

The clerk was now peering down the hallway with a terrified expression on his face. "What have you done?" he cried out. "Murder!"

At the word 'murder,' doors and shoji started opening beyond the main hall as other workers started calling out to find out what was going on.

"Get back to your desks," Yoshida bellowed, "or I'll arrest the lot of you for obstructing justice!"

Doors and shoji opened and closed again, leading to a deafening silence, broken only by the terrified sobs of the clerk.

Yoshida turned back to Kenshin to find him holding up the forearm of one of the unconscious yakuza. It was heavily tattooed, but prominent on it was the image of the poisonous mamushi snake. "This mean anything to you?" Kenshin asked.

Yoshida pulled up the sleeve of the other unconscious man; another mamushi snake. He let out a low whistle. "These aren't just any yakuza, Himura. They belong to the number-one most ruthless gang in Osaka! You can forget about that no-fighting plan of yours. If this is the crowd Nakahira's running with, you can plan on a hell of a fight."

"Well, right now I'd just like to leave this building without anyone on the street getting hurt, but I see at least three more of them out there. I doubt they'll care if anyone gets in their way."

Yoshida took a look out the door's eye slit.. It had stopped raining, which had brought out even more people to the street than before. "There's no other way out of this building, not even a delivery entrance." He thought a moment, then said, "But we could try to trick them..."

"I'm listening," Kenshin said, intrigued.

"Well, curiosity killed the cat, as they say, so we open the door and just wait. It won't take long for them to wonder what's taking their comrades so long in coming out, and one of them's bound to walk in to find out what's going on. When he does..." and he demonstrated a lightening-fast groin kick. "I'm betting that when _he_ doesn't come out, the next one will walk in the same way. That's two down and only one to deal with on the street. Then we run like hell to the boat."

"It's a good plan," Kenshin declared. "Let's do it!"

It worked like a charm. Within a minute of opening the door, the first yakuza had walked in and been laid low by Yoshida's formidable groin kick. The cry of agony that ensued brought the second yakuza in. Kenshin did the honors this time with a hilt under the jaw; the man crumpled instantly. When still no one came out, the third man, who was across the street, started making his way over as well, but he was on alert now and had a gleaming tanto drawn in front of him, totally oblivious to the shouts of passersby who were fleeing at the sight of an armed man.

"Now!" Kenshin yelled, and he and Yoshida shot out the door, making a beeline away from the armed yakuza and towards the side street that would lead them to the canal. The yakuza spun on his heel and took off after them, pushing people out of his way but finding it difficult to navigate through the mass of pedestrians. As Kenshin and Yoshida made it to the intersection, the man gave up and, not caring who got in the way, threw his tanto with deadly accuracy towards the fleeing men.

Screams went up, but that wasn't what made Kenshin turn-he could hear the tell-tale sound of a knife in flight. With only seconds to spare, he leaped forward and, pushing people aside, he unsheathed his sakabatou and slapped the tanto down harmlessly to the ground. Then, with a bound, he leaped high over everyone's heads before descending to deliver a brutal ryu tsui sen to the yakuza. The man's collarbone shattered from the force of the downward blow. Without missing a beat, Kenshin landed and took off again down the street to the canal. Yoshida was already in the boat and under the tarp; Kenshin jumped in after him, the sound of screams and police whistles in the background.

"Get us out of here!" Yoshida yelled to the boatman. Within seconds, they were in the middle of the canal, and by the time the police made it to the canal, their boat was already gliding out of sight into a nearby warehouse tunnel. The two men lay on the sacks of tea, panting from the exertion and grinning from their success at eluding the yakuza and the police.

"I suppose this isn't the time to tell you that the police chief warned me not to get involved in any violence," Kenshin finally said.

Yoshida burst out laughing. "That's pretty funny, Himura! There's sure to be more coming our way, too!"

Kenshin sat up now, holding his side as he did. He was surprised at how winded and knocked out he felt from what was, for him, just a mild skirmish. No matter, he'd manage; he always did. "Does it seem odd to you," he finally said to his friend, "that the yakuza posted a bunch of men at a place that Nakahira wasn't even at?"

Yoshida's smile disappeared. "Himura, has it occurred to you that you've probably caused great distress to the Mamushi gang? Caused them to lose face among their fellow gangsters here in Osaka? You don't think Osaka's underworld hasn't heard all about what happened up in Tokyo? A simple job of fleecing some girl out of an inheritance-thwarted. The Mamushi send a deadly assassin to get rid of her-thwarted. They bribe a tax collector to take over the property-thwarted. And all by you. Now you're here gunning for a client who owes them a hell of a lot of money..."

"I'm not 'gunning' for anyone, as you put it. I just want him to cease and desist."

"Doesn't matter," Yoshida said. "The Mamushi have already lost face, and if they don't get it back, they risk being challenged and killed off by the rest of the city's gangs. So, you see, they can't afford not to kill you. Of course, we're not going to let that happen, which means the Mamushi are finished, and that, of course, means you're going to become the chief of police's new best friend."

Kenshin gave a huff of a laugh. "I highly doubt that."

Yoshida stretched back onto the tea sacks and closed his eyes, a serene smile on his face. Kenshin leaned back as well. Might as well get a little rest before the next onslaught, he figured, though he still hoped he'd only need to talk, not fight, at Nakahira's house.

"Don't get too comfortable," Yoshida said. "We'll be there in less than ten minutes."

Kenshin closed his eyes. The shouts of the police had faded now, and it was so tempting to just relax to the sound of the water lapping gently against the boat. Now that it had stopped raining, it didn't even feel that cold. A nap right about now...

"Yoshida-teichou," the boatman called out softly.

Instantly, Kenshin and Yoshida bolted upright and crawled out from under the tarp. They were coming to a small dock in a residential neighborhood of what looked like wealthy samurai homes from about fifty years ago-the neighborhood of Nakahira Masayoshi.

"How far from here?" Kenshin asked.

Yoshida pointed. "There, the two-story at the top of the rise. From what I gather, it was built by Nakahira's father's boss. The family was banished to Hokkaido last year along with a bunch of other former Matsudaira retainers because of their support for the samurai uprising. From what I gather, there were so many big houses left vacant from the expulsions that the prices are relatively cheap. That's what must have made Nakahira think he could afford it."

"With Kaoru-dono's money, you mean."

"Well, not for much longer, eh?" Yoshida said with a smile. He started stepping off the boat, but Kenshin held him back.

"I still want to avoid a fight if at all possible."

"With Nakahira, or with the yakuza? Because you can be pretty sure the place is surrounded by them."

"Point taken. Let's go."

They stepped off the boat, but Kenshin did not immediately follow Yoshida up the street. Instead, he stood looking, listening, and stretching out his senses in search of anything out of the ordinary. He detected a slight something on a nearby rooftop, but after concentrating for a few seconds, he smiled to himself. It was a ninja, he decided, one with no aggressive designs-probably an observer sent by the Mizuki brothers. He continued his scan of the area; nothing else.

"Himura, are you coming?" Yoshida called back when he realized Kenshin had not kept up.

"Aa. I was just checking..."

Yoshida had unthinkingly started walking without checking his surroundings, but Kenshin was right-there could be yakuza hiding around here. Clearly he was out of practice!

"It's okay, you can keep going," Kenshin said as he hurried to catch up with his friend.

When they got near the house, Kenshin stopped again. He placed himself in the shadow of the house next to Nakahira's and pulled Yoshida into the shadow with him while he surveyed his options. He motioned for Yoshida to stay put, then stealthily made a quick circuit of the entire wall of the house. There was a guard box at the front gate with a man in it, and he could sense several men inside the front gate and the rear tradesmen's gate.

The wall of Nakahira's house was high but certainly jumpable. So, he chose a part of the wall where he had sensed no one, then jumped up and peeked his head over the top. He could see four men behind the main gate playing cards; their weapons were piled helter-skelter a few feet away. He could detect a zanbato, not as large as Sano's but large nonetheless, a rather nasty looking scythe, what looked like a sheathed katana, and a pike. In the rear were two men snoozing against the wall; each had a tanto resting on his lap. From inside the house he could hear a woman's shrewish voice yelling, "Hurry up! He might be here any moment!" By 'he,' Kenshin had a feeling the woman meant himself. He let himself down to the ground and reported what he saw to Yoshida.

"Six against two-not the odds I'd normally like to see," Yoshida said candidly.

"Ah, but look at their weapons-so many that are inappropriate for the situation." At Yoshida's skeptical look, Kenshin said, "Think about it. A zanbato was made for sweeping horses out from under an attacking soldier, but it's pretty useless for close-in fighting-too unwieldy, as a friend of mine learned the hard way. Same with a pike-intimidating yes, but it's too long and unwieldy for defending a gate without risking hitting one's own men with the back end of the pole. That just leaves the katana and the scythe, which shouldn't be a problem."

"Well, for you, maybe," Yoshida retorted. "How 'bout you handle the front gate and I'll take the rear." He patted the tonfa tucked in his belt. "With this, surely I can take on two tanto-wielders!"

Kenshin smiled. Having this kind of back-up was something he hadn't expected when he arrived in Osaka-a pleasant surprise. He just hoped Yoshida was as good as he thought he was, for Kenshin was sure his friend's wife would never forgive him if Yoshida were injured in what was really just Kenshin's fight.

Now that they had their general strategy planned, they walked towards the guard box at the house's gate. Kenshin motioned for Yoshida to stand out of sight while he approached the box. The guard had a sheathed tanto lying on his lap and was playing cup-and-ball to entertain himself. He was clearly startled when Kenshin appeared noiselessly in front of him. In a split second, he was on his feet and unsheathing his weapon, but before he could even draw it out a millimeter, Kenshin's blade was at his throat. The tanto fell harmlessly to the ground.

"I am Himura Kenshin of Tokyo," Kenshin announced as his sakabatou pushed against the man's neck, "and I wish to speak with Nakahira Masayoshi." The words were correctly formal, but there was no mistaking the danger within his voice.

"He's not here," the man growled defiantly as he glared back at Kenshin.

"He is within," Kenshin continued as he pushed in closer, forcing the man up against the back wall of the guard box. "You know it, I know it. You will inform him that I am here to speak with him."

"Make me!" the man spat back, but Kenshin ignored his insolence. A bell rope hung in the far corner of the guard box, and he grabbed it with his free arm and pulled. Instantly, from behind the wall there came the sounds of men scrambling to grab weapons and take up defensive positions.

"Yoshida!" Kenshin called out. "Help me tie this guy up."

Yoshida stepped into the guard box and, grabbing some rope from the travel bag on Kenshin's back, began tying the man's hands and feet.

By now, the gate had opened a few inches, just wide enough for one man to peek out. Kenshin looked him in the eye and said, "I am Himura Kenshin from Tokyo. I've come to speak with Nakahira Masayoshi."

The man slammed the gate in his face, but Kenshin kicked it open. Now he was beginning to get angry. "I am Himura Kenshin," he announced once again, his voice rising, "and I _will_ speak with Nakahira Masayoshi!"

Four men confronted him now, brandishing their weapons. They were a big, burly lot, clearly there to be as intimidating as possible. "Over our dead bodies!" shouted the man wielding the zanbato, and he started hurtling through the gate towards Kenshin.

"As you wish," Kenshin replied. He quickly assumed the battoujutsu position and waited until the zanbato was literally inches from obliterating him. Then he struck out with such lightening speed that the zanbato shattered into a thousand tiny shards. As fast as his upward stroke had been, the downward one was even faster as it shattered the man's collarbone, leaving his arm dangling uselessly from his body.

"I have no reason to fight you!" Kenshin called out to the remaining three men. "I merely wish to speak in peace with Nakahira!" but before he could finish, the pike-bearer came running at him, the weapon aimed at his heart.

Kenshin quickly brought his blade up in a diagonal stroke, slicing the long pole in two. Before it could even register with the gangster that all he was holding now was a uselessly short stick, Kenshin finished with a downward slice that hit the man on the side of the neck. There was a sickening crunch of bone, and the man crumpled to the ground.

Now Kenshin ran forward through the gate to confront the other two yakuza, who themselves had started running towards Kenshin. The scythe-bearer made a lunge for him, hoping to catch Kenshin's neck within the deadly curve of his weapon. At the same time, the man with the katana had started an overhead downward strike to split Kenshin in two. Instantly, Kenshin pushed off into a high diagonal jump away from both of them. The man's katana sliced the tiniest scrap of fabric from the bottom edge of Kenshin's hakama as he jumped away, but otherwise it hit nothing but air. The result was that the blade hit the ground so hard that the man couldn't pull it out. Unfortunately, the scythe-bearer had so much forward momentum that he couldn't stop the swing of his scythe; the point of the weapon lodged itself in his comrade's rear.

Howls of pain reached Kenshin's ears as he twisted in mid-air in preparation for a forceful ryu tsui sen to the scythe-bearer, but now the man posed no danger, as he was busy trying to extricate his weapon from his friend's posterior. Kenshin had promised Kaoru there would be no fighting, and he had already severely injured two men when he hadn't wanted to. Now a third was injured because of him. The least he could do now was to try to honor his promise by causing as little harm as possible to the scythe-bearer. So, he landed lightly and merely knocked the man out with the hilt of his sword.

Meanwhile, as Kenshin ran through the gate to confront the two yakuza, Yoshida ran in behind him and headed for the back, tonfa at the ready. He had barely rounded the front corner of the house when he met the two yakuza from the back, who were running to help their comrades fight Kenshin. When they saw Yoshida, one of them immediately threw his tanto at him. The aim was good and the speed was fast, but Yoshida was up to the challenge. Holding the shaft of the tonfa, he used its knob to knock the speeding blade away. Then he rushed forward to jab the tonfa into the man's throat, causing his opponent to choke and fall. The second yakuza now came upon him with his own tanto raised and ready to stab deep into Yoshida's chest, but Yoshida struck out with his forceful groin kick. The man fell in agony. By this time, Kenshin was rounding the corner to help, but all that was left to do was make sure the two men didn't regain consciousness too soon, a job Yoshida quickly accomplished with a hand chop to their necks.

Kenshin looked around and was pleased to see he wasn't needed. Then he saw blood on Yoshida's arm;his friend had been injured. He reached into his chest pouch for the little container of Megumi's miraculous healing salve and said, "Want some for your injury?"

"What injury?" Yoshida said. Then he noticed a burning pain; one of the tantos must have sliced him during the melee. "Kuso," he muttered. "Eiko's going to have my head. She hates mending."

He had just opened the little jar when they heard a woman's screams from the front of the house. "Go around back," Kenshin ordered. "I have a feeling Nakahira may try to escape." Then he ran to the front of the house to confront the woman.

It was an elderly woman who stood in the doorway, and she was screaming at the sight of the blood and the mangled bodies at her gate. From the way she was dressed, Kenshin guessed she was Nakahira's wife. He was angry now that his desire to simply speak with Nakahira had come to this, but in a monumental feat of self-control, he managed to say, as evenly as he could, "I am Himura Kenshin from Tokyo, and I wish to speak with Nakahira Masayoshi!"

The woman screamed again, then fled back into the house. Obviously, a dignified entrance for Kenshin was out of the question, so he ran in after her, then straight across the inner courtyard and into the house's rear corridor. He found the woman standing in front of a shoji with her arms spread defensively in front of it as if that could keep him from entering the room. Pushing her away, he said tersely, "I am here to talk to your husband, not to harm him."

"Murder!" she screamed in reply before sinking to the floor in a flood of tears and hand-wringing.

Kenshin threw open the shoji. The room appeared to be Nakahira's study, for it had a large, ornate desk covered with papers, and several heavy cabinets for scrolls and books. Nakahira, as he expected, was trying to escape out a back window, only to find Yoshida standing in his yard. The terrified man climbed back into the room, only to find Kenshin standing silently in front of his desk, arms crossed.

"I came here to talk, not fight," Kenshin said as calmly as he could.

Gathering what little dignity he could muster, Nakahira seated himself behind his desk. Taking in Kenshin's now disheveled appearance and somewhat tattered hakama, he said with all the bravado he could muster, "So _this _is the Demon of the Bakumatsu?"

"I am Himura Kenshin of Tokyo," Kenshin corrected him, "and I have come on behalf of Kamiya Kaoru, the daughter of your late brother."

"Ah, my beloved niece!" Nakahira said with a forced smile, though his ki was practically screaming with fear.

It took every ounce of self-control Kenshin had not to pummel the man on the spot. Instead, he said, "She is no niece of yours. You know her father was disowned by your family before she was born."

Nakahira's face suddenly relaxed, and with a condescending smile, he said, "My poor fellow, you made this long trip for nothing! Why, my brother was taken back into the family shortly after the girl's mother died. It's all there in the public record. I'm sure if you go to the Municipal Registry Office, they'll be able to..."

Kenshin slapped his hands on the desk and leaned into Nakahira. In a low voice, he said, "I've seen the document. We both know it's a fake-as is the death certificate you created for Kamiya Kaoru."

At this, Nakahira's eyes went wide.

"And I know you used them to steal your brother's military death benefit from his daughter. That's a crime punishable by death. Shall I go on?"

Now Nakahira was sweating. How did Kenshin find out? "You can't prove it!" he said in desperation.

Kenshin leaned in further. "The documents are in my possession. I'm willing to stake my life on my statement. Are you willing to stake your life on yours?"

Suddenly, Kenshin sensed movement and danger behind him. In a flash, he turned around, grabbed a wrist holding a kitchen knife aimed at his back, and squeezed until the knife fell to the floor. It was Nakahira's wife; it had all taken less than a second to unfold. He dropped her wrist in disgust and said sternly, "You will sit in that corner-now!" then pulled her there when she seemed unable or unwilling to move. She slumped down and glared malevolently at him.

Nakahira now seemed frozen with fear, but as Kenshin turned his attention back to him, the man summoned what strength he had left and said, "What do you want of me?"

"I also know you've made two attempts to steal Kamiya Kaoru's property from her and one attempt to have her killed..."

"I've done no such thing!" Nakahira tried to say, but he was forced into silence by a sudden onslaught of ki. "Murder!" Nakahira's wife screamed again, only to have the ki directed at her as well.

"Don't lie to me," Kenshin said in a low, dangerous voice. "For that, too, I have proof, and I know your next step is to try to force an adoption on her, which would make you the owner of your brother's property. This will not happen."

Kenshin now reined in his ki, and as he did, Nakahira tried once again to grab control of the situation. "Even you can't stop centuries of tradition," Nakahira spat at him. "She may be the bastard daughter of my brother..."

Now an even stronger blow of ki hit Nakahira, practically pushing him over backwards and causing his wife to dissolve into tears, but Nakahira would not stop. "And just how do you think a seventeen-year-old girl is going to keep a property like that from being stolen from her by somebody else when I was so close to getting it myself?"

"Because she will be marrying me," Kenshin stated, somewhat to his own astonishment.

"Ha! Marry you? A former assassin? I have sources of information, too, you know, and I know you're absolutely penniless! I know you've gotten into trouble with the police on more than one occasion, and from what I hear, in all likelihood one of your thousands of enemies will probably kill you off before the girl even reaches twenty! Some protection you'll provide!"

Kenshin flung out his most forceful blast of ki yet. "You just don't get it, do you?" Kenshin growled. "You're through. You will cease all attempts on Kamiya Kaoru's life, freedom, and property. And you will immediately turn over the hundred-yen death benefit you stole from her. This is non-negotiable."

Nakahira was immobilized, and not only from the force of Kenshin's ki. He was suddenly realizing exactly what made the Hitokiri Battousai such a terrifying figure, and it wasn't just his skill with a sword.

"Why should we give you anything?" a weak voice demanded from the corner.

Kenshin released Nakahira from his ki and spun around to face the man's wife. His eyes were the color of fire, which would have been warning enough for any man, but not for this woman.

"You're a penniless drifter," she rasped out. "For all we know, you'll just abscond with the money!"

"Wife, don't!" Nakahira yelled out, but too late. A blow of ki hit the woman full on, nearly sucking the air out of her.

"It would not be a good idea to keep toying with me like this," Kenshin warned, and he put his hand out to Nakahira for payment. "Now."

Nakahira suddenly smiled placatingly and said, "Maa, maa, no need to come to blows. Just let me sit at my desk and look around. I'm not even sure I have that much money on hand..."

He made a show of searching in his desk drawer. There was plenty of money there, but he'd be damned if he was going to turn it over. If he could put Kenshin off until tomorrow, he and his wife could run away before anyone was the wiser. With this in mind, he looked up with an apologetic smile and said, "I'm sorry, but I seem to be pretty low on cash right now. Certainly by tomorrow..."

Kenshin could tell he was lying. "You can try to put me off until tomorrow, but by then the police will be given all the documentation they'll need to arrest you for stealing a military death benefit and for trying to swindle a landowner out of her property. So, you can pay what's owed now or you can wait until tomorrow. It's your choice."

Nakahira's jaw tightened. He opened the drawer again, this time reaching far back until he felt the cold metal of the loaded gun he had been keeping there ever since he had become entangled with that blasted loan shark. In hopes of fooling Kenshin, he slowly started sliding it out as he said, "Ah, I think I've found some cash..."

Barely had he raised the gun from the drawer than the sakabatou flashed through the air and struck his hand. "Murder!" his wife screamed for the umpteenth time, but Nakahira didn't hear it. The blinding pain from his now-shattered hand overpowered all his senses.

Kenshin held out his hand once again for the money. Nakahira was weeping from pain, but he managed to pull a fat envelope from his desk. He threw it at Kenshin and said, "Here! I don't even know how much is in there. Just take it, take it all!"

Kenshin caught the envelope, counted out a hundred yen from what looked like about three hundred, and threw the rest back at Nakahira. Then he turned on his heel and started walking out.

"Are you still going to the police?" Nakahira called out weakly.

"You're not worth the time," Kenshin answered angrily, "but if you ever try anything like this again against Kamiya Kaoru-or anyone she associates with-just remember that you'll have to reckon with _me_, and I have a long memory." Then he swept out of the room.

"Murderer! You're a murderer!" he heard Nakahira's wife shriek as he broke into a run across the inner courtyard and through the front of the house to the front gate.

Time was of the essence now. With all the woman's shrieking, neighbors were bound to come out and find the two men he had defeated lying just outside the gate, and that would bring the police. So, he was relieved to see that Yoshida had already taken care of dragging the unconscious men into the courtyard and was closing the gate.

"Himura, we've got to get out of here quick," Yoshida said urgently. "Even if the neighbors don't bring the police themselves, the police who were chasing us downtown might show up any minute. They're sure to follow us here."

Kenshin quickly spread out his senses for signs of oncoming trouble, then opened the gate, grabbed Yoshida's arm and pushed him through. They ran head-long back to the dock and, as before, they threw themselves under the tarp.

"Home!" Yoshida yelled out to the boatman, and within seconds they were gliding silently away.

**Japanese Terms:**

yakuza: gangster.

saya: sword sheath.

tonfa: a rod-like wooden weapon about the length of an arm, held with a short perpendicular handle. It is Okinawan in origin, was favored by ninjas, and was the weapon Okina used to fight Aoshi.

teichou: captain.

tanto: short knife.

zanbato: the giant paddle-like weapon Sano favored at the beginning of the manga.

**Author's Note:** Well, once again it's taken me a year to update. Abject apologies to everyone! It's not that I haven't tried, but this really has been a most difficult story to write (this time, Kenshin didn't seem to want to walk into the Municipal Registry Office. Can't say as I blame him!). And once again, many thanks to 'older woman', author of the wonderful _Ichirizuka,_ for her help and suggestions!

The samurai uprising in Satsuma (the Seinan War) keeps coming up in this story for a reason, and not only because Kaoru's father was killed in that war. Osaka was a hotbed of support for the uprising, particularly because so many of the city's former samurai were related to the Matsudaira family (the family of the shogun) either directly, through marriage, or as retainers. To prevent any further problems from this group, the government did banish nearly all of them to the very inhospitable northern island of Hokkaido (maybe that's why they sent Saito up there, to keep an eye on them!).

In case you're wondering how I came up with the description of the Municipal Registry Office, I've based it on descriptions I've read of some Bakumatsu-era buildings in Kyoto that were built explicitly to prevent swordfights.

Next chapter: No hints this time, only a pledge to try to take less than a year this time to crank out the next installment!


	7. Chapter 7

Kenshin has finally confronted Kaoru's uncle about his nefarious schemes and has even gotten back the 100-yen death benefit that should have gone to Kaoru upon her father's death. Could it be that things are finally looking up for him?

**The characters:**

Mizuki Michio: tea-shop owner and co-okashira of the Osaka Oniwabanshu

Mizuki Takeo: police officer, twin of Michio and co-okashira

Yoshida: Kenshin's old wartime friend (a character from my story _Descent into Madness)_

Eiko: Yoshida's wife  
Nakahira Masayoshi: Kaoru's uncle, older brother of her father

All hail Watsuki Nobuhiro, the ultimate copyright holder to whom even Sony, Viz, Jump, and probably dozens more, have to bow (as I must bow to them).

**Learning to Live Again**

**by **

**Conspirator**

**Chapter 7**

'She'll be marrying me...'

The words kept going through Kenshin's head as the canal boat sped him and Yoshida away from their battle at the Nakahira house. Yoshida was prattling on about something or other, but all Kenshin could hear were those words that had come totally unbidden to him as he confronted Kaoru's uncle: 'She'll be marrying me.' For someone who always weighed every word, every action to within an inch of his life, how in the world had _those _words managed to escape? He felt sort of...stunned.

Yoshida gave him a little shove. "Himura, you haven't heard a word I've said! I was asking what happened in the house between you and the Nakahiras' so I can knock out my report for the Mizuki brothers as soon as we get back!"

Kenshin's mind snapped back to his friend. "What? Oh, yes, whether there were any injuries aside from the yakuza." He quickly brought his attention back to the present and said, "The wife-she probably has bruises on her right wrist where I forced her to drop the knife she was going to stab me with. And Nakahira himself-when he tried to pull a gun on me, I slammed his hand with the sakabatou. His hand is probably totally shattered."

He sighed. Why wouldn't people just believe him when he said he all he wanted to do was talk? "Is that all you need for your report? I did try to convince them I was not there to harm them, but when I'm attacked..."

"No one's going to blame you for defending yourself," Yoshida assured him.

"I'm not so sure about that. 'Not even a whisper of violence,' I believe is what the police chief told me, or I'd be in trouble. I'd say this was more of a shout."

Yoshida rolled his eyes. "Is that what's got you so distracted? You're worried about the police chief? Come on, the Mizuki brothers will take care of that!"

"No, it's not that..."

'She'll be marrying me,' Kenshin heard once again in his head, and a tiny smile started to creep over his face. He was starting to think that sounded rather good.

As the smile grew bigger but no words followed, Yoshida finally said, "You gonna let me in on the secret?"

Kenshin looked up, and with that rather strange smile said, "I seem to have told Nakahira that I'd be marrying Kaoru-dono."

There was a second of silence, then Yoshida exploded. "I knew there was more to this Kaoru-dono than just being your landlady!" and he clapped Kenshin on the back so hard his friend nearly fell over on the tea sacks. "This calls for a celebration!"

"Well...maybe not," Kenshin said as his smile faded. "I mean, how can I marry her? I'm penniless, I have no job... Hell, I can't even hold a job because people blame me for that recent attack on Tokyo."

"What recent attack on Tokyo?"

"Surely your newspapers had a report about the Shanghai gun-smugglers who destroyed parts of Tokyo last month. Certainly your military-intelligence friends would have heard about it."

"I did see something about some Chinese yakuza trying to shoot up Tokyo from a hot-air balloon," Yoshida said slowly, "but who's gonna believe a crazy story like that?"

Kenshin let out a long breath, then said, "Well, it's true, and the head of that smuggling ring, the man who spearheaded the attack, was Yukishiro Enishi, the brother of my late wife Tomoe. His real target was me and those closest to me."

"What?" Yoshida gasped.

"Seems he witnessed what happened that day in the Forest of Barriers, when I killed Tomoe. You remember about that, don't you?"

Yoshida did. He had been sent to Otsu by Katsura to nurse Kenshin back to health after that battle and had seen Tomoe's body packed in ice behind the little house. It was something he'd never forget.

"Well, Enishi apparently made his way somehow to Shanghai, even though he was just a child. He'd been plotting revenge ever since and managed to become head of the biggest weapons-smuggling ring in Shanghai in order to do it."

He gave a bitter little laugh. "Know how he found me? He had sold an armored warship to Shishio Makoto for Shishio's war against the government, which I and some others managed to sink before confronting Shishio himself. Enishi heard about the sinking, of course, and quickly found out that I had returned to Tokyo, where I was living openly. No longer rurouni, you see, no longer trying to live on the margins of society. He nearly achieved his aim of breaking me."

Yoshida whistled softly. "Unbelievable," he murmured. He was beginning to understand why Kenshin felt he needed to stay away. "I would have had your back, though," he said softly. "You wouldn't have had to face things alone all these years."

"And then you would have been targeted, too. I cared too much about you and Eiko-dono to ever endanger you like that."

The two men drifted into silence as Yoshida tried to wrap his mind around what he had just learned. "Well, I'm glad you're back now," he finally said.

"Me, too."

* * *

By the time the boat docked near Yoshida's house, the cold drizzle that had dogged them all afternoon had turned into a full-fledged downpour, so that by the time the two men reached the house a few blocks away, they were both drenched and shivering. That stopped Yoshida's wife Eiko in her tracks, for she was ready to chew them out for making her hold lunch so long.

"Go take those clothes off, both of you, before you catch your death of cold!" she ordered, and she shooed them in the direction of the bedroom.

She got no argument from them. Yoshida was already undoing the many buttons on his woolen, European-style military uniform, which was beginning to smell like a dead animal, and Kenshin had shed his haori, whose thoroughly soaked cotton padding made it feel like it weighed ten pounds. As they reached the bedroom, Eiko was right behind them with towels and a portable brazier to warm them up. In no time, the two men had stripped down to their fundoshi and were fumbling around for dry clothes. Kenshin had wisely thought to take his extra clothes out of his travel bag before leaving for the Municipal Registry Office that morning, and he retrieved them now from a corner of the room.

"Just like old times, eh, when we shared a room at the Ohagi Inn?" Yoshida commented as he pulled out a dry kimono from a cabinet.

Kenshin chuckled. "Except the company's better here."

"Of course, you were no prize as a roommate, what with those nightmares and you constantly chucking that top all over the room."

Kenshin smiled at the memory, though Yoshida had his back to him and couldn't see it. "That was just an eye-hand coordination exercise my shishou taught me."

"Like that method of predicting dice, right? I never did quite get the hang of that."

Yoshida turned around to continue the conversation, but his words died in his mouth. Kenshin had not quite put on his dry kimono yet, so that what Yoshida saw was a mass of vivid, very recent red scars crisscrossing Kenshin's chest from waist to neck. Kenshin caught his stare. He quickly shrugged into his kimono and tied it off, ducking his eyes under his bangs and moving to warm up by the brazier. "It's been a difficult few months," he murmured softly in response to the unasked question.

The words snapped Yoshida out of his shock. "What has happened to you?" Yoshida finally managed to say as he joined him.

Kenshin sighed as he warmed his hands over the brazier. His friend, he suspected, still thought no sword could ever touch him. "Well, first there was Shishio Makato and his assassins; that was this summer. Then there was Enishi and his assassins last month."

"All those wounds just since the summer?"

"Mostly."

Yoshida stared into the burning coals of the brazier as his mind worked through the implications of this. He remembered when he himself had nearly lost his arm during the war and how long it took him to recover from just that one trauma and loss of blood. His friend had sustained not just one, but several wounds that, judging by the location of the scars, probably should have killed him, and all in just a few months! Clearly, his hunch that Kenshin was not well had been right.

"Himura," he said sternly, "what are you doing undertaking an enterprise like this so soon after such severe wounds?"

"Really, I'm fine," Kenshin replied, eager to relieve his friend's concern. "The sling came off my arm at least a week ago, the doctor said everything was okay..."

"Sling? You broke your arm a month ago and you're swinging a sword already? Even you can't pull that off without consequences!"

"Maa, maa," Kenshin said, giving his friend the rurouni smile that was guaranteed to disarm any worries. "It wasn't broken-it was just a bullet wound to the shoulder."

"_Just_ a bullet wound?!" The rurouni smile had not worked. "And what about all the rest of it? You've obviously had a pretty bad burn, there's a huge gash across your stomach that looks like it probably should've killed you... I mean, you must have lost a ton of blood from that one alone! How did you ever survive?"

Kenshin consciously turned all his attention to rubbing his hands over the little brazier. The depth of Yoshida's concern was catching him off-guard. His friend was right, though, he _had _lost a lot of blood. Hadn't Megumi told him that was the reason he had so little energy now? And the strange stiffness he now felt in his muscles; hadn't she warned him that his numerous injuries may have damaged his muscles permanently? After all this time it wasn't so hard to talk about the Shishio affair or even Jinchuu, but was he ready to talk about that?

"Isn't that boatman waiting for your report?" he said instead. "We can talk later."

Yoshida gave him an odd look. "Right, but you _will_ tell me later," he ordered.

Kenshin reluctantly nodded his assent. With this slim promise, Yoshida grabbed some paper, his brush, and an inkstone, and began writing his report for the Mizuki's, stopping from time to time to get details from Kenshin.

"I suppose you'll be writing a report for your military-intelligence minders, too?" Kenshin asked quietly as Yoshida started folding the report into an envelope.

The way Kenshin said it caused Yoshida to look at his friend. "They've got to let the military police know when I've used their uniform during an operation. Why?"

Kenshin's face became inscrutable. He had made his peace with the government knowing where he lived now, but that didn't mean they needed to know everything about him. "It was a private matter that brought me here," he said softly, "and I'd rather keep it that way."

"I know," Yoshida assured him. Then he grabbed one more piece of paper, quickly wrote a few lines, and handed it to Kenshin.

'Himura Kenshin,' it read, 'arrived in Osaka yesterday at the behest of a recently orphaned girl in Tokyo to speak to a member of her extended family, and he asked for my help. While searching for the family member, he and I were attacked twice without provocation by members of the Mamushi gang. There were no fatalities.'

Kenshin handed the paper back. "Thank you," he said, his face visibly relaxing.

Yoshida nodded, then set the second report aside. "Listen, while I run out to the boatman with the Mizuki's report, I want you to talk to Eiko about your injuries. Her father was a doctor, and although he's been gone many years, she still makes and sells his medicines. Please, Kenshin, talk to her. She can help you. I'm sure of it."

Kenshin looked up, startled. From the moment they first saw each other the previous night, he and Yoshida had naturally fallen into the old army habit of calling each other by their surnames. For Yoshida to call him Kenshin now instead of Himura... How could he say no? He bowed and said, "I promise."

The two now made their way to the front of the house, Kenshin carrying the little portable brazier with him. As he set it down by the dinner table, Yoshida pulled Eiko aside to speak with her. Then he grabbed his raincoat and pulled on his boots and headed out into the rain to deliver his report to the boatman.

The table Eiko had set seemed far too grand to Kenshin. Dishes of preserved fish, fresh squid, seasoned tofu, seaweed salad, pickled daikon, steamed sweet potatoes, a heaping bowl of rice-it was a veritable feast. They had apparently interrupted her as she was placing tiny portions of the feast on a small table in front of the family's little shrine to deceased relatives. He remembered, way back when he used to visit Eiko and Yoshida during the war, that the only memorial tablet in the shrine was Tomoe's. He had been so surprised to find it there, but Eiko had told him that as Tomoe was his wife, and Yoshida considered Kenshin to be his younger brother, she considered Tomoe to be family. Now he squinted his eyes to try to read the nameplates. Sure enough, hers was still there.

"Kenshin-san, please, make yourself comfortable," Eiko said as she effortlessly eased him into the position of guest of honor. "Husband has told me of your condition, but perhaps you would rather have some hot soup first before we talk?" and before he could say yes or no, she had moved silently to the kitchen. In seconds she was back with a bowl of steaming miso soup. Just holding it in his hands helped warm him up, and he began to sip it with relish.

After giving him a minute or two to enjoy the soup, Eiko said, "Husband has told me he is worried for your health. You have sustained several severe injuries over the past few months? He fears you may have lost a lot of blood, as he did many years ago."

Kenshin stared into his bowl. Talking about his injuries wasn't something he was used to doing, even with Kaoru, but he had promised his friend...

"Yes, there was some blood loss," he finally admitted, "but a special salve a doctor friend gave me helped staunch the bleeding. You can see for yourself how excellent it is-I used some today on your husband's knife wound."

Eiko's eyes widened in surprise. "Husband was injured today? He said nothing about that to me!"

Oops, probably that was something Yoshida was hoping to hide. Well, she'd notice the rip in his jacket soon enough anyway. He bowed his head contritely and said, "Forgive me, Eiko-dono. It's nothing to worry about, just a small flesh wound on the forearm, but you know how those tend to bleed rather copiously. The salve stopped the bleeding immediately."

"Really! Is it better than the one you taught me to make when you used to visit?"

"Actually, yes, because it also has a pain-killer in it," he answered, glad they were off the subject of him.

And indeed, Eiko looked eager to talk more about the salve, but she forced herself back to the main topic of conversation instead. "And was your blood loss serious enough for you to lose consciousness?" she asked.

Kenshin thought a moment, then said, "I'm pretty sure it was less than two weeks the first time."

Eiko gasped. Two weeks? The man must have nearly died! But wait... "There was a second time?" she asked weakly.

"Aa, last month, but I think maybe I was unconscious only a few days, if you don't count when..." He stopped. He truly had no idea whether he had lost consciousness while in Rakuninmura, but did it really matter? "Yes, perhaps only a day or two," he finally said. "I was on my feet in no time."

Eiko sat stoically as she processed this information. "But Little Brother," she finally said softly, using every ounce of willpower to keep tears from escaping her eyes, "none of this should have happened. The government's banned swords for years!"

"And yet it was the government that required the use of my sword to protect itself last summer," he retorted. He immediately regretted the curt tone his voice had taken and quickly apologized, but Eiko just waved his apology away.

"I don't understand," she said. "You were protecting the government? They asked _one man_ to protect the government? But isn't that what an army is for? I mean, when Husband told me a few months ago that he heard you had been killed in an explosion... Was that you protecting the government?"

Kenshin suddenly realized she had no idea what had happened in Kyoto. After all, the government had tried to keep it a state secret. Even Yoshida, with all his military-intelligence connections, didn't seem to know much about it.

"Please, Eiko-dono," Kenshin said," it's just... well, you know what my job was during the war. I was just a tool for my commanders to use as they saw fit. Even after all these years, they still see me as nothing more than the sword I carry. There was a threat to the very existence of the government. They had tried before to end the threat, but once they knew where to find me..."

"But Husband told me this morning before you left about your vow to your wife and how you've lived up to it. They had no right to ask you to do this, to inflict such a toll on you!" She stopped suddenly as she realized that what she said may have crossed the boundaries of propriety. She immediately put her hand over her mouth, then bowed low. "Please forgive me! I shouldn't have said that. I'm just a country girl, very blunt..."

"It's okay, Eiko-dono," Kenshin said gently. "I agreed to help them of my own free will. As for the injuries? Well, that's just the lot of the warrior, isn't it?"

She looked up, relieved that he hadn't taken offense, and with great effort forced herself to return to the task at hand. "So, you've obviously lost a lot of blood in a very short time," she continued quietly. "I daresay you're quite tired because of it."

"Well, yes," he admitted, "but I've had really excellent medical care. A close friend who is a doctor helped me recover in Kyoto and once again last month, and..."

"And if you were getting excellent medical advice, you would be home recovering for many more months instead of being here and fighting bandits on trains!" Eiko said sternly, now fully back in control of herself. "But since you are here, perhaps you would be willing to try a remedy I learned from a German doctor Husband translates for. He's the rare gaijin who sees value in our own Japanese medicine, and so he teaches me some of his remedies in exchange for learning about mine. His remedy is made from meat, though, if you have any qualms about that."

"No."

She got up and hustled out to the kitchen, returning with a small glass jar of something brown. "It's dried and powdered liver flakes," she said, "and it tastes best in a broth. If you take some every day for two weeks, you will have much more energy. It's technically for women who have severe weakness after bleeding too heavily during childbirth. Of course, you haven't given birth, but heavy bleeding is heavy bleeding, ne? Will you try it? It's worked wonders for the women I've given it to."

Kenshin chuckled. Hadn't people always taunted him about his supposedly girlish looks? And now he was going to take a women's remedy! Oh well, who cared? He was tired of feeling tired, and Eiko looked so eager.

"Yes, I'll try it," he said with a smile. "And to be fair, my doctor friend moved back home to Aizu a few weeks ago and has no idea I'm here."

"Well, I'm sure she'd be horrified if she knew," Eiko smiled as she carefully measured out a small amount of powder and put it in his bowl with more soup.

Kenshin braced himself for the worst and took a sip. Surprisingly, it tasted much like the broth in the Akabeko's beef hot pot. "Not bad," he said approvingly.

"Not bad?! Why, Eiko's cooking is the best!"

It was Yoshida, returned from his trip to the dock and dripping wet. He quickly flung off his raincoat and pulled off his boots and joined Kenshin at the table.

"Husband!" blushed Eiko, who was always embarrassed when her husband boasted of her accomplishments. "His soup has one of Herr Doktor Grossheim-sensei's remedies in it!"

"Well, okay, her cooking is the best when it _doesn't_ have Herr Doktor Grossheim's remedies in it, and I'd like some myself!"

"The report is delivered?" Kenshin asked.

"Aa. In twenty minutes it will be in the hands of Mizuki Michio. In another ten, it'll be in the hands of his twin brother at the police station, so now you can fill me in on the last ten years."

Kenshin smiled. It felt good to be back with these people, the only ones who never expected anything of him except his company. He felt his tension melting away and realized, much to his astonishment, that not even in Tokyo did he feel so carefree.

The two men now dug into the food and ate in companionable silence for quite awhile, for both were ravenously hungry after their exertions, before Yoshida finally sat back and said, "So, tell me what's been going on."

Kenshin took a deep breath. How to condense ten long years of wandering into a few minutes?

"It was after the battle of Toba Fushimi, when it was clear the Bakufu had been thoroughly defeated...," he began, and he proceeded to tell the tale of his chance encounter with the swordsmith Arai Shaku and his attempts to live peacefully, only to find that the many men seeking revenge always seemed to find him and, when they would fail to kill him, would often take their revenge by harming those who may have helped him. Yoshida listened impassively, but Eiko looked stricken.

"You understand now why I couldn't risk contacting you all these years?" Kenshin ended.

"But what about the sword ban?" Yoshida asked. "Didn't that make any difference? At least around here, it's reduced the amount of bloodshed dramatically."

"Well," Kenshin said, pondering the question, "now that I think about it, the past few years have been easier, and it seems like there have been fewer and fewer people looking for revenge. Still, I've kept wandering because, to be honest, it's really hard to see someone you've come to like and who's trusted you suddenly be overcome with fear or revulsion when they find out who I am, and I'd rather just move on before they find out."

Eiko looked ready to cry.

"So, how did you end up in Tokyo, of all places? I mean, if you were trying to stay out of the government's way, why would you ever go to the capital?"

Kenshin told him how he had heard rumors of a murder spree in Tokyo perpetrated by someone calling himself the Hitokiri Battousai and how he had felt compelled to stop it. "That's how I met Kaoru-dono. This impostor was claiming to be a former student of her father's dojo, and it was causing her students to leave. She is a formidable swordswoman, but no match for someone twice her size. Still, she thought she could take on this deadly swordsman by herself. Of course I couldn't let her come to harm, and, well, you know the rest of that story."

"And yet when she found out _you_were the real Hitokiri Battousai, she didn't want to throw you out?"

"Well, that's just it. She said she didn't care what I used to be, only what I was now." Kenshin smiled as he remembered that day. "No one had ever said that to me before, so..." He shrugged his shoulders. "...I stayed."

"And now you're happy in Tokyo!" Eiko chirped happily, clapping her hands with delight, sure that Kenshin's terrible tale had come to a happy ending.

He sighed. "You know how I told you people end up suffering for befriending me? Well, Kaoru-dono's dojo was nearly destroyed several times because of me. She and a young orphan boy we saved from some yakuza both were nearly killed not once, but several times, and a man who became my good friend nearly died helping me in battle. Do I need to go on? But other than that, yes, I am very happy there." He stopped a moment, then said, "It's difficult to live with the knowledge that just my presence can put people in danger, and yet, despite it all..." A tone almost of disbelief crept into his voice. "...Kaoru-dono seems not to want me to leave."

A silence fell as Eiko brought in more tea. Then Yoshida said, "So tell us what happened in Kyoto. You said yesterday it involved that hitokiri who took over your job, Shishio? I met him just once, at the waystation during the war. A seriously deranged man, I must say."

"Well...," and Kenshin told how in May the government sent the infamous Saito Hajime, who was now working for the government, to find him and bring out the battousai in him; how Okubo Toshimichi personally asked him to defeat Shishio; how he felt he had no choice but to do so when Okubo was assassinated just a week later.

Then he proceeded to tell the long tale of leaving Kaoru, finding his shishou to learn the ougi ("I wasn't kidding back then when I said I wasn't a master swordsman," he added), meeting and getting help from the Kyoto branch of the Oniwabanshu, how his friends from Tokyo had followed him and had almost been killed by Shishio's men, and of the horrible battles that ensued on Mt. Hiei.

"I remember at one point lying there, feeling my life bleed out of me and thinking I had done enough-that I had weakened Shishio's organization enough-that I could just die now and end it all, but then I realized I had promised Kaoru-dono that I'd return with her to Tokyo, that I had a reason to live..."

He faced Yoshida now and said, "You know, I never did think I deserved to live. My entire life as a rurouni, I lived only because I had promised Tomoe I would live, but I wouldn't have cared if my life ended one day or the next. It was from seeking out my shishou, from learning the ougi of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, that I realized that Kaoru-dono, the young boy Yahiko, even my friend Sagara Sanosuke needed me, that my life did mean something, that there were people who depended on me..."

Yoshida suddenly grabbed him by the shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. "Don't ever say you didn't deserve to live! Of all the men I served with, you of all people deserved to survive!"

Kenshin looked at him in astonishment.

Yoshida suddenly got up and went over to the family shrine, opened a small drawer beneath it, and started rummaging through the contents. He pulled out a memorial tablet with Kenshin's name on it and handed it to him.

"That's been in and out of our shrine more times than I like to think. We had it made when we heard the government had killed its supposedly top hitokiri and we thought they meant you. Then we heard you were alive, so we took it out, but then there'd be another credible report of your death, and we'd put it back in. Out, in, out, in-it was still in the shrine last night, right next to Tomoe's memorial tablet, until I came home and told Eiko that with my own eyes I could confirm you were definitely alive."

Kenshin sat there, stunned, and then bowed with his forehead to the floor. There were no words for what he was feeling now.

"No need, Himura, no need," a chastened Yoshida said softly, raising his friend back up as he spoke. "I'm sorry I sounded so angry, because I'm not. I'm just glad you're alive and here with us."

Once again, Kenshin felt that all-encompassing comfort he used to feel whenever he'd visit Yoshida during the war, and he suddenly found himself wanting to talk to his friend about what had happened in Rakuninmura, something he could barely bring himself to do back home.

"Yoshida," he began, "there is one more thing, something that happened when my wife's brother attacked us last month and made us think that he had killed Kaoru-dono..."

"Tomoe-san had a brother?" Eiko gasped. "And he did what?!" but at that moment the bell at their gate rang. "Please," she begged, "don't say anything more until I come back!" and she went to see who was there.

"It's probably just the children coming home from school," Yoshida called after her.

"But they don't ring the bell," she called back.

She walked out into the rain to find a policeman at the gate.

"It is imperative that I speak with your husband, Yoshida-san," the man said brusquely. He was clearly in too much of a rush to bother with polite formalities. "Tell him it's Captain Mizuki."

She hid her surprise at the name. She had never met the man, but her husband had mentioned his name on occasion as someone who employed him from time to time. She bowed a welcome, then rushed in ahead of him.

"Husband," she said in a hurried whisper while Mizuki was removing his boots and raincoat, "it's Captain Mizuki to see you!"

"What?!" Yoshida quickly stood up and strode towards the little anteroom to escort his sometime employer into the main room. "Captain Mizuki, what are you doing here? I thought we were never to meet outside of..."

"Actually, I'm his twin Michio," the man said, "and this is an emergency."

As he said it, three boys suddenly barreled into the anteroom, schoolbooks swinging. They stopped dead in their tracks to stare at the policeman and the stranger with the red hair.

Eiko was beside herself at this breach of decorum. "Boys, where are your manners! You know not to run in the house, and here we have guests!" And, of course, as hospitality dictated, she started with the formal introductions. "Boys, this is Captain Mizuki of the Osaka police, and this..." pointing to Kenshin "...is your father's little brother, Himura Kenshin. Greet them properly now..."

They all bowed except for the youngest, who stared at Kenshin, then looked towards the memorial shrine and said, "But isn't he supposed to be in there?"

Eiko was nearly apoplectic at this point. She started herding them out of the room, saying "Go clean up right away, and don't come back in here until I say so!" She turned to Michio, bowing low, and said, "Please forgive the unforgivable rudeness of our children..." but he stopped her.

"No time for that now." Then, turning to Kenshin, he said, "You must leave here immediately. The Mamushi gang is out for your blood. They're flooding the city with men looking for you, and they won't hesitate to kill anyone they think is hiding you."

Kenshin immediately stood up to leave, for he was very used to this kind of thing, but Yoshida held him back. He'd be damned if a Mizuki brother was going to prevent him again from catching up with Kenshin!

"Wait a minute!" Yoshida said testily. "If there's one thing I know about the yakuza in this city, it's that they operate almost solely in the city center, not this far out. My house is probably one of the safest places Himura could be right now. Let him stay!"

Michio glared at Yoshida. He was not used to having his orders questioned.

"I'm guessing the police are out in force to look for me as well," Kenshin ventured. "That's why you're impersonating your brother. Am I right?"

Michio nodded. "According to my brother, the police chief is convinced there's going to be an all-out war in Osaka for gang supremacy, now that you've taken out the cream of the Mamushi gang, and he's blaming you for starting it. He's just ordered a door-to-door search of the entire city to find you. He's built his reputation on keeping violence to a minimum in this city. If he catches you, he plans to lock you up, prosecute you for fomenting violence, and if he has his way, put you away for life."

"But the Mamushi attacked _us_!" Yoshida exclaimed angrily.

"And they'll do it again if they find out Himura was here. We've got a good head start on them and the police. We've got to go _now_!"

Kenshin sprinted down the hall to get his travel bag, drying clothes, and sakabatou. Yoshida started to follow, but Michio held him back.

"Yoshida-san, I need you to use your contacts with the military to help get Himura-san out of the city."

"My contacts? I was merely a translator for the base commandant! I don't have any pull over there!"

Michio glowered. This was no time for Yoshida to pretend he didn't know that Michio knew that Yoshdia knew... Oh, hell, it was too complicated to even think about!

"Yes, you do," Michio finally spluttered. "Listen, we don't have much time. We'd normally take care of this ourselves, but we can't keep Himura-san hidden for very long without risking my brother's position within the police infrastructure. He's just recently uncovered evidence linking the chief to criminal activity in the city, yet the chief is being touted as the top candidate for the next police commissioner of the entire prefecture. If the chief manages to capture the notorious Hitokiri Battousai, he'll be untouchable. We can't let that happen."

"Himura's managed to evade anyone who's ever tried to find him for the past ten years," Yoshida reminded Michio. "Surely, he can do it now!"

"That may be, but the chief plans to alert the neighboring areas to be on the lookout for him, and with that hair he's not exactly inconspicuous. Now, we know he still has many old comrades in the upper echelons of the army. Remind them that they have an obligation here. After all, it was because of their own ineptitude that they needed the help of the Tokyo police to guard that gold bullion shipment for the Central Bank. It doesn't matter that he would have come here regardless. Find out when the next troop transport is scheduled to leave, and tell them they need to put Himura-san on it. I don't care where it's going as long as it's far away from Osaka."

"You're not even going to try to get him out yourselves?"

"My family is already working our own contacts. My fear is that it will take us longer than twenty-four hours to put together something this complicated, and that's too long."

"Okay, then, I'll do my best," Yoshida promised, and he rushed off to put on more formal clothes.

Eiko had been sitting silently the whole time, but now she said, "Captain Mizuki, I mean Mizuki-san... I mean, what about my family? If this gang finds out Kenshin-san was here..."

"Don't worry, Yoshida-san," Michio said. "We have what you might call undercover agents at our disposal. They're already in place keeping an eye on this house. I'm also ordering them to watch your children and as well as their school. I guarantee you'll all be safe."

Eiko sat back, her face pale. "I had no idea that Husband's translating work involved so much danger..."

"It doesn't, not normally, but it seems your 'little brother' is anything but normal."

She smiled weakly. Now she truly understood what Kenshin had meant about keeping them safe by staying away.

Within minutes, Kenshin and Yoshida were back and ready to go.

Suddenly, Eiko called out, "Wait!" She hurried into the kitchen and came back with the jar of the German doctor's remedy for blood loss. "Here," she said, pushing the bottle into Kenshin's hands, "take this with you. Two big pinches in broth twice a day, do you understand?"

Kenshin slipped the bottle into his travel bag. "Aa," he said with a gentle smile. "I promise to follow your instructions faithfully."

"Come on," Michio said, "there's no time to lose." And then they were gone.

* * *

"Here, put this on."

Michio handed Kenshin a hooded black cloak, then slipped one on himself. They were on a small canal boat gliding quickly towards the center of town. The umbrella they sat under did little to keep them dry in the continuing rain.

"If I may say, Himura-san, if you were one of my onmitsu, your hair would have been dyed black or shorn off long ago. It's like waving a flag at your enemies."

Kenshin gave a mirthless little laugh. "I've never believed in hiding who I am."

"Foolish," grunted Mizuki.

They had left Yoshida at the dock to catch a water taxi to the army base. That left Kenshin alone with someone he had learned earlier in the day was a supremely talented interrogator. He began to cover his ki, slowly so as not to attract attention, then promised himself to weigh each word carefully before speaking. He could afford no surprises like the one at the Nakahira house!

They glided along in silence for quite some time. Then, "There could be fallout from the injuries you inflicted on Nakahira this afternoon."

"I doubt it," Kenshin replied evenly. He thought back to what was in Yoshida's report. It hadn't mentioned Kenshin's threat to expose Nakahira's criminal acts or that Kenshin held incriminating documents, but he was sure that one of Michio's onmitsu had been close enough to hear what had been said. Michio was just playing dumb.

"There could be penalties that follow you to Tokyo."

Kenshin turned to look at Michio and said, "I think you know already why Nakahira won't go to the police."

Ah, was that an infinitesimally tiny twinge of an eyelid he saw? How satisfying, though Kenshin didn't show it. Still, he couldn't resist saying, "It was very faint, the ki I detected from one of your onmitsu. Almost non-existent, in fact. He was on a nearby roof, correct? Probably a young trainee? He'll be excellent one day. I'm sure he heard everything."

Michio fumed, although this time there wasn't even a twitch to show it. Kenshin, however, had no doubt he had thwarted something. Indeed, Michio had hoped Kenshin would reveal what kind of documentation he had on Nakahira without having to ask about it outright. He had a feeling it would do no good to ask now.

"Mizuki-san, if your boatman would just take me to the farthest edge of the canals, I'll be on my way and out of your hair."

Michio had foreseen this, of course. "We are obligated to our okashira, your ally Shinomori Aoshi, to see to your safety," he reminded Kenshin. "We cannot do that with a police dragnet that will be extending into the countryside."

"I _can_ take care of myself," Kenshin retorted stiffly.

"And you will be made a political football if you are found."

There was a silence. "Oh," Kenshin said.

The boat was pulling in now to the dock of the Mizuki family's tea warehouse. "We are placing bedding and other necessities in the warehouse loft. Meals will be brought to you. You will stay there until arrangements have been made for your safe passage from the city."

"I need to return the badge I was given."

"That can be arranged."

"And how long will it take for you to arrange for my passage?"

A cryptic grin spread across Michio's face. "Let's just say we are already tweaking the threads that make up Osaka. We'll know soon enough what the result is. Meanwhile, your comrade Yoshida-san will be returning here shortly. It is my hope that there will be time for you to finish the visit with him that we had to cut short."

Kenshin nodded his head in acknowledgment, but really, what kind of visit could they have in this building? He was sure everything they'd say to each other would be overheard. Oh, well, at least they'd get to say goodbye.

* * *

And indeed, threads were being tweaked, though not just by the Oniwabanshu.

"You worthless, spineless man!" shrieked Nakahira's wife to her husband as soon as Kenshin was gone. "You've ruined us! I told you to just buy my brother's house after he was exiled to Hokkaido, but no, the house of a Matsudaira wasn't grand enough, you had to have _this_ house! I told you to just borrow money from my sister's husband, but no, you had to get involved with some yakuza loan shark!" She pulled a bunch of papers off her husband's desk and threw them at him. "I'm going out to take care of things. I'll be back."

Nakahira had been howling from pain the whole time. "Bring a doctor!" he cried out after her. "For pity's sake, bring a doctor!"

His wife stormed out of the house, carefully picking her way around the bodies of the unconscious yakuza littering her yard. As she hurried down the street, she saw police running up to her house. She broke into a run to avoid them.

The police had headed to the Nakahira house on a hunch after the street fight outside the Municipal Registry Office, but they never expected to find what looked at first to be carnage. When it became apparent that every body on the ground was still alive, and that all had the conspicuous Mamushi tattoo, they quickly became confused. It _was _the infamous Hitokiri Battousai they were chasing, wasn't it? Weren't hitokiri supposed to kill people?

Then they became aware of the howling coming from the house. The officer in charge, a sergeant, sent one man back to headquarters to report about the yakuza; the rest ran in to find Nakahira trying to collect his papers with one hand while also trying to protect his shattered hand. He looked startled to see police enter the room.

"I did nothing wrong!" he cried out. "Whatever you were told, it's a lie!"

"What happened here?" asked the sergeant. "Who did this to you? Was it a red-headed swordsman?"

"No, no, no, no, no!" Nakahira moaned as he slumped down to the floor. Kenshin's threat to expose his crimes was still fresh in his memory. "No! No hitokiri! No, no, no!" and he dissolved into tears.

"Then who? The yakuza?"

"No!Yes! I mean...!" and he dissolved into tears once again.

"Then who fought those yakuza in your yard? Surely, it wasn't you! Were they holding you hostage?"

All they got was more wailing and crying.

A policeman ran in to say, "Sergeant, there are two more wounded yakuza in the backyard."

The sergeant looked at the blubbering Nakahira and said to his men, "Let's go. We're not going to get anything else from him."

As they turned to leave, Nakahira's wife came back with porters in tow, for she was more determined than ever to get them moved out of this cursed house right away. She took one look at the police and screeched, "Out! Out of our house! We did nothing! It's all lies!"

"What's all lies, onna-san?" asked the startled sergeant.

"A doctor!" wailed Nakahira. "You didn't bring a doctor?"

The sergeant looked at the wife and the porters, then at the stricken Nakahira. He turned to one of his men and said, "Go find the nearest doctor for this man." To the wife he said, "It seems pretty clear what happened here: yakuza held you hostage and you've been freed. Take care of your husband. You can come down to the station later to make a statement."

"Out!" she screeched in reply.

And that, indeed, was the report that was handed in to the chief detective of the Osaka police, Mizuki Takeo. Of course, he had already received a secret report from his own onmitsu as to what had happened at the Municipal Registry Office and the Nakahira house, but that was for his eyes only. The report from the attending police, however, he was obliged to share immediately with the police chief. The chief blew up.

"What the hell is this?" the chief roared. "I warned this Himura-Kenshin-Hitokiri-Battousai not to get involved with violence! Instead, what does he do? He causes an attack on a city street! He nearly kills a dozen men and severely injures a homeowner! Yakuza hostages? Are you kidding me? What kind of a whitewash is this?!"

Mizuki stood impassively, like an oak tree withstanding a storm. "The man denies he was harmed by the hitokiri," he stated matter-of-factly.

"And why would yakuza even be at this man's house? They were chasing that Battousai, that's why! He's causing havoc all over the city! Well, he's not getting away with it, not on _my_ watch!"

"The man did say yes when asked if yakuza were holding him hostage," Mizuki answered calmly.

"After he said no!" the chief responded pointedly.

"The fact is," Mizuki continued, "I recognize this man's name from an investigation we wrapped up several days ago. You may remember we arrested a major yakuza loan shark as a result. He's sitting in a jail cell right now. I've looked at his books. This Nakahira Masayoshi was in debt up to his eyeballs with this character and way overdue in repaying. You know what the yakuza do to those who don't pay up-they break your hands, then they break your legs, then they burn down your house."

The chief gave Mizuki an incredulous look. "You're telling me this is all due to some loan gone bad? That this notorious hitokiri showed up here in Osaka because some minor functionary owed money to a loan shark?!" He snorted in disgust.

Mizuki didn't even blink. "Our questioning has revealed that this loan shark on occasion has made use of the Mamushi gang's contacts with the second most powerful crime syndicate in Tokyo. Apparently, this is the same crime syndicate hired by the Chinese gun smuggler who attacked Tokyo last month. It was Himura Kenshin who brought the smuggling ring down."

"Let me get this straight," the chief growled out in disbelief. "You're saying all this is retaliation for what happened in Tokyo?"

Mizuki stood impassively, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. As far as he was concerned, in this affair his first responsibility was to his chief okashira, Shinomori Aoshi, to keep Kenshin's real reason for coming to Osaka secret. Sowing some plausible doubt into the chief's mind was a good way to do it.

The chief's face brightened. "Good, then it's settled! Himura Kenshin came here for the purpose of creating mischief. He's broken the law. Bring him in. I'm throwing the book at him!"

But an hour later, yelling could be heard from the chief's office. "Absolutely not! I refuse! Get Mizuki in here!"

Mizuki walked in to find the chief with the mayor and a representative of the Central Bank.

"Gentlemen, my chief of detectives. Mizuki, tell them what we've found."

"That Nakahira Masayoshi and his wife were apparently taken hostage by members of the Mamushi gang," he recited, "that they apparently were freed through the intervention of one Himura Kenshin, known as the Hitokiri Battousai."

The chief shot an angry look at Mizuki. "And that this Battousai obviously came here with the intention of causing mayhem on our peaceful streets! Isn't that right, Mizuki?"

Mizuki remained silent.

"These...dignitaries..."-the chief was so furious he could barely spit the word out- "...think we should be giving the man a medal!"

"People who saw the fight outside the Municipal Registry Office claim he saved them from harm," noted the mayor.

"And he did save our bullion from train robbers," added the man from the Central Bank.

The chief was fuming. "Get...this...man...out...of...my...city...now!" he growled out in anger. He rounded on Mizuki. "NOW! On the first train, boat, ox-cart, I don't care what it is! Just get him out!"

"Of course, we have yet to find him," Mizuki reminded him.

"OUT! Get OUT! AND FIND THAT MAN!"

* * *

**JAPANESE TERMS:**

**Yakuza:** Japanese gangsters

**haori: **a padded warm coat

**fundoshi:** loincloth

**maa maa:** Japanese equivalent of "now, now..."

**Rakuninmura:** Also known as the "Village of the Fallen"

**gaijin: **foreigner

**Herr Doktor Grossheim-sensei:** yes, I know the "sensei" is redundant, but Eiko thinks "Herr Doktor" is his first name.

**ougi:** the ultimate technique of a martial arts form

**onmitsu: **a ninja

**Matsudaira:** the clan of the shogun. For 200 years, until 1868, Osaka had been under the shogun's direct control through his clan members. Many of these former bureaucrats still lived in Osaka and had supported the samurai uprising in 1876. So, after the uprising was put down in 1877, the government exiled all male members and their families to Hokkaido, the Japanese equivalent of Siberia.

**Onna-san:** a way to say "Madam"

**Author's Note: **Thanks, everyone, for sticking with this story. I know it took a year to post this chapter, but that's quicker than last time! In case you're wondering why you might never have heard anything about Tomoe's body being packed in ice behind their house, that's not from the manga or anime-it's something from my story _Descent into Madness. _In other words, author's conceit!

Once again, many, many thanks to 'older woman', author of the wonderful _Ichirizuka,_ for helping me cut through some overly dense prose!


	8. Chapter 8

The Mamushi Gang is out for Kenshin's blood and the police are after him for supposedly starting a gang war. It's going to be tough finding a way to leave Osaka in one piece.

**The Characters:**

Mizuki Michio: tea-shop owner and co-okashira of the Osaka Oniwabanshu

Mizuki Takeo: police officer, twin of Michio and co-okashira

Yoshida: Kenshin's old wartime friend (a character from my story _Descent into Madness)_

Eiko: Yoshida's wife

Nakahira Masayoshi: Kaoru's uncle, older brother of her father, who has been trying to defraud Kaoru

Me: Wish I held the copyright. Watsuke: He's glad _he _holds the copyright! Viz, Jump, Sony, and all the other copyright holders: Okay, they're not the evil empire. After all, they let us write fan fiction with out having to pay royalties!

!

**Learning to Live Again**

**by**

**Conspirator**

**Chapter 8**

The warehouse loft was one of the most spacious places Kenshin had ever stayed. It ran the entire length of the big warehouse, and with high windows facing west, the room was flooded with pink and orange light from the sunset that was breaking through the clouds. Surprisingly, although the loft was extensive, it was not entirely filled up. In fact, the only items it seemed to contain were several ornate chests of varying sizes. Kenshin immediately recognized them as storage containers for various kinds of weaponry. This, then, must be the secret armory of the Mizuki clan of the Oniwabanshu.

Mizuki, however, had directed Kenshin to the other side of the loft. There he found a futon, a traditional wooden neck pillow, a chamber pot, a few books and magazines and, thoughtfully, a sword stand. He glanced at the books-tales of bushido, it looked like, the kind Yahiko enjoyed reading. He picked one up and flipped through the pages. He occasionally read them himself-he often found them unintentionally amusing-but right now he was just too tired. Between the day's exertions and not getting enough sleep the night before at Mizuki's house, the words just seemed to swim in front of his eyes. So, he leaned back against the wall, his sakabatou propped against his shoulder, and fell asleep.

He was startled from his slumber by the sound of someone trying to open the trapdoor to the loft. In an instant, he was on his feet, sword drawn. Then Yoshida's head popped into the loft.

"Hey, it's just me, not the Mamushi Gang!" Yoshida laughed.

Kenshin lowered his sword and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry! I was asleep. What time is it?"

"Around six."

"Six!" He did a quick calculation. He must have been asleep a good two hours!

Yoshida had by now hoisted himself up into the loft. "Well! I've just had an interesting time at the Osaka Army-Navy Joint Forces Base. Seems your friend the Osaka police chief lodged a formal complaint with the Army base commandant about the 'rogue hitman' the Army brought in from Tokyo and has demanded your immediate arrest should you turn up at the base. You can imagine they were relieved when I showed up to give them an eyewitness account of what really happened."

Kenshin sat back down. "Did they believe you?"

"Well, mostly. I did have to tell them more than those few lines you approved back at the house, but I didn't tell them about..."

He saw Kenshin pointing to the walls and his ears before placing his finger across his lips. Yoshida got the message. He quickly grabbed a blanket, sat down next to Kenshin, and pulled the blanket over their heads.

"Just a little trick I learned way back when," he said softly. "Most of those gaijin weapons dealers coming through the waystation didn't speak Japanese, but some did, and those walls were damned thin. Let me know if you can't breathe."

"I'm fine. You were saying?"

Yoshida shifted the blanket slightly, then said in his softest voice, "I didn't tell them the business about the stolen death benefit-thought that was best left out since that's your insurance policy against Nakahira, so to speak."

Kenshin nodded. "So we're in the clear?"

"Not quite. They've demanded a copy of the actual police report, though from what Mizuki-san says, it sounds like it supports my story. The police chief, however, has made it sound like your sole purpose in coming here was to cause mayhem on the streets of Osaka, in which case the Army would be duty-bound to turn you in. After hearing me out, the base commandant now thinks something else is going on. Seems this police chief has a history of bad blood with the Army, something having to do with the samurai uprising last year, and they said it wouldn't surprise them if these are trumped-up charges designed to make the Army look bad. Anyway, they told me that if your story checks out, they'd be more than happy to give you safe haven and even procure a safe-conduct pass for you from the governor of the prefecture. What they can't figure out is why you'd want to take a troop transport back to Tokyo when you could just take the train."

"You mean aside from the fact the Mamushi Gang has supposedly staked out the train station looking to kill me?" He shrugged his shoulders. "It's simple-I can't afford a train ticket. Anyway, the troop transport wasn't my idea, it was Mizuki-san's. I wanted to disappear into the countryside. I've walked the Tokaido Road before, it wouldn't be the first time, but Mizuki-san pretty much ruled it out. That doesn't mean I couldn't figure out a way to do it, but to disrespect his clan to that degree when they've given me invaluable help, not to mention their ties to my friends in Kyoto..."

"You do know there's a ticket in your name waiting at the train station, don't you?" Yoshida cut in. "Of course, the police would arrest you the moment you claimed it, but still, it's there."

"That's impossible. I haven't bought a ticket, and I can't imagine who else would buy one for me, either."

Yoshida stared in disbelief. "You mean you really don't know? When the Tokyo police sent you and the other policemen here, they bought you round-trip tickets! How do you think the other policemen got home?"

Kenshin looked stunned. Really? There was a round-trip ticket in his name? And all this time he thought he might have to walk for two weeks to get home!

The look on his face caused Yoshida to burst out laughing. "You've obviously been a rurouni too long, my friend!"

"Shhh!" Kenshin said as he covered his friend's mouth with his hand.

"Listen, about that death benefit business," Yoshida said more softly as he pulled an envelope from a pocket, "I've brought the papers we held back from the Municipal Registry Office. I didn't think it would be a good idea to keep them at my house, what with the yakuza on the prowl."

Kenshin reached out to take them, but Yoshida held them back. "You should be turning these over to Mizuki Michio, you know. If the goal is to use them if Nakahira tries anything else, well, you won't know if he does and I won't know if he does, but the Mizuki's certainly will."

Kenshin hesitated. It went against all his instincts to hand these over to the Mizuki's, but Yoshida was right: if anyone should hold them, it would be them. Once again he was reminded of Sano's words last summer-it was time to place a little trust in others, and despite their prickly reception of him, the Oniwabanshu in Osaka had given him no reason not to trust them, "You're right, of course," he said.

The two sat staring at the documents, a strange silence coming over them, Kenshin thinking about the lengths to which Kaoru's uncle was willing to go to get what he wanted, Yoshida pondering Kenshin's plight. Yoshida felt his anger slowly rise at the unfairness of Kenshin's situation, but now it almost seemed that Kenshin was smiling. "What could you possibly have to smile at?" Yoshida asked roughly. "You help the police uncover not just one criminal but two, and they thank you by trying to arrest you for your efforts?"

Kenshin laughed softly. "Oh, that's nothing new, at least for me, anyway. No, it's because I now realize that I _do_ have something to offer Kaoru-dono as a husband, even if I am penniless and jobless-protection, and I don't mean the kind that comes with a sword." A feeling of calm started to settle over him for the first time since, well, he couldn't think of when.

"I mean, think about it," he continued. "She's an orphan who's barely the age of majority, and the Mizuki brothers were right last night when they said no judge would ever prevent a relative from trying to force an adoption or a marriage on her. It's just the way of the world for a young woman who's single. I guess that's how that statement I made to Nakahira, that I'd marry her, just popped out-somehow, I must have instinctively known it was my best shot at protecting her." He laughed softly again as his smile grew. "And to think, for once it has nothing to do with my sword skills!"

"Well, of course it doesn't!" Yoshida started to say, but Kenshin cut him off.

"Yoshida, you don't know how important that is to me. People always seem to assume that I'm nothing more than my sword. Need a politician saved from a psychopathic hypnotist-assassin? Call Himura! How 'bout dealing with a crazed former assassin bent on taking over the country? Call Himura! But Himura isn't his sword! Himura just wants to live his life in peace! This, though?" His smile grew even wider, if that was possible. "Marrying someone? Why, it's just the normal course of events for any man and woman-it doesn't matter who they are or what their past." He stopped for a second as he conjured up Kaoru in his mind's eye. "For all I know, this may be as close as I'll ever come to knowing what it's like to be just a normal person," and he gave a sigh of contentment.

"I never realized..." Yoshida began, but he stopped as Kenshin suddenly stood, throwing the blanket off the two of them.

"Yoshida, you're right, I do want to take that train." He strode over to the trapdoor and flung it open. As he did, he heard a cry-someone had been standing on a ladder propped against the opening, trying to listen in. Kenshin watched as the man fell, did a backflip in midair, and managed to land like a cat on all fours, unharmed, on the floor twelve feet below. The man looked up at Kenshin, then ran like the wind to Mizuki's office.

At the sound of the commotion, Mizuki shot out of his office, nearly colliding with his onmitsu. "What the...?!" he exclaimed as the man hurriedly whispered in his ear. He looked up at Kenshin peering down and yelled, "Close that door and wait for me!" He was not happy.

"That was some stunt that warehouseman pulled off," Yoshida exclaimed as Kenshin pulled the trapdoor shut, "and I must say, it looks like you've pissed Mizuki-san off royally."

Kenshin started finger-combing his hair, which he could tell had been seriously tousled by the blanket. Yoshida took the hint and did the same. Within minutes, Mizuki joined them in the attic just as Yoshida was folding the blanket. It took Mizuki only a second to figure out how the two men had managed to thwart his onmitsu's efforts at eavesdropping. The onmitsu had, however, heard Kenshin's declaration about the train.

"So you're intent on taking the train," Mizuki said, his eyes shooting daggers at Kenshin. "You understand that we cannot give you any aid whatsoever in this endeavor."

Kenshin bowed to Mizuki as a soldier would bow to his commander. "I understand the difficult position this puts your family in. I mean no disrespect, but please hear me out. When I came to Osaka, I could have no way of knowing that there would be heavy involvement of yakuza in what I thought would be merely a negotiation between myself and Nakahira Masayoshi. If events had played out as I had expected them to, I would not hesitate right this moment to begin the two-week trek back to Tokyo on the Tokaido Road if that's what I needed to do. But now I am concerned that the threat level in Tokyo could approach a point that could overwhelm even your clan in Tokyo."

The daggers in Mizuki's eyes turned even more dangerous, if that were possible. "Are you saying my clan can't hold its own against yakuza?" he growled dangerously.

Kenshin straightened up and looked him in the eye. "I would never say that about the Oniwabanshu."

Mizuki looked ready to throttle him. "That name is not to be mentioned in public!" he hissed.

"I've known who you are for a long time," Yoshida said pointedly.

Before Mizuki could spit any more fire, Kenshin said, "My concern is this: what if the Mamushi gang uses a telegraph to contact their yakuza allies in Tokyo to attack Kaoru-dono and the dojo? It could happen before anyone could prepare."

"We'd know instantly," Mizuki retorted, throwing angry glances in Yoshida's direction as well. "There are only a handful of telegraph offices in Osaka, and we have people at every one of them."

"But they could have their own telegraph, could they not? Shishio Makoto had his own telegraph at his mansion on Mt. Hiei."

Mizuki stopped short. He had not known that.

"And yakuza in Tokyo already have a grudge against Kaoru-dono and myself for saving a young boy from their clutches. My impression is that your clan in Tokyo right now is a small one. If these two scenarios came to pass, even your clan could be overwhelmed."

Mizuki was simmering, but at least the pot had stopped boiling. Kenshin was right. The clan _was _small in Tokyo, a match for any yakuza gang but not for an all-out assault. "What would you have us do?" he asked grudgingly.

Yoshida, who had been hanging back, now strode forward and said, "The base commandant said he'd be willing to facilitate getting Himura on the train. He's even now in the process of obtaining a safe-conduct pass from the governor of the prefecture. That should take care of the police. As for the yakuza stalking the station..."

"Let me confer with my brother about that," Mizuki broke in. "You can't count on the regular police to confront the yakuza at the station, but there are a number of men whom my brother trusts who have helped in his investigation of the police chief. This could possibly help him secure an indictment." His temper was calming now at the prospect of something positive coming from this unanticipated turn of events.

As Mizuki turned to leave, Yoshida nudged Kenshin and pointed to the documents still lying on the floor. "Oh, yes, one more thing...," Kenshin said.

Mizuki spun around on his heel. He was beginning to lose what little patience he had just managed to salvage.

Kenshin held out the documents. "Earlier, on the boat, you asked how I knew Nakahira would not go to the police. This is how." He held out each document one by one. "They are all forgeries filed by Nakahira with the Municipal Registry Office so he could steal his brother's death benefit and take over his brother's property. As you know, he would face the death penalty for crimes such as this. I told him I had the documents but would not show them to the authorities unless he tried to make another move against Kaoru-dono. I was going to leave them with Yoshida, but under the circumstances..."

"I convinced Himura that you were the best person to hold these, not me," Yoshida broke in. "If Nakahira did try something, you're the most likely person to know of it."

Mizuki took the documents in a somewhat stunned silence. After Kenshin's testy exchange on the boat, this was most unexpected.

"Mizuki-san," said Kenshin as he took in the man's rare show of surprise, "I am a reticent person by nature, and I've lived a hidden life for so many years that I'm finding it difficult to learn how to live more openly. I know, though, that I can trust you to hold these and abide by the promise I made to Nakahira."

Mizuki's eyes bored into Kenshin's as if he were trying to read his very soul. Then he bowed slightly and said, "I am honored by your trust. Even my brother will not see these," and he disappeared through the trapdoor.

"Well, that went well, relatively speaking," Kenshin commented once they were alone again.

"I thought he was going to kill us both, to be honest," Yoshida replied. "But that business about saving a boy from the yakuza, was that true or were you just trying to lay things on a bit thick?"

"Ah, yes, Yahiko. " Kenshin smiled. "He's turned out to be quite the young swordsman. His mother was left destitute at the end of the Bakumatsu, and the only way she could support her child was to sell herself..."

"You don't have to explain," Yoshida said. "I can guess. She died, they took the child and trained him to steal, right?"

"Aa, and I'll bet he brought in quite a bundle because he was good at it, so you can imagine they were not happy when we...intervened."

"You mean you took them down."

"Well, something like that. But now I've got to make sure things don't spiral out of control. Soon I may not be able to wield a sword anymore, and that means I can't have yakuza gangs from all over Japan coming after us."

"What do you mean, before you might not be able to wield a sword anymore? What are you talking about?"

Kenshin stopped. He hadn't meant to say anything about that-it was a subject he was still trying to come to terms with himself. Well, too late now, so he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and said as if reciting a script, "I was told last month that my muscles are so scarred now that in a few years I probably won't be able to perform Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu anymore-maybe not even wield a sword." He opened his eyes and fingered the hem of his hakama where the yakuza's sword had sliced it, then held it up and said, "This never would have happened even six months ago. There's no question. I can already feel the difference in my muscles."

Yoshida was flabbergasted. Kenshin not able to wield a sword? It was unimaginable, but then again, hadn't it been unimaginable that he himself would ever be able to raise his own damaged arm above his shoulder after nearly losing it in battle all those years ago? And now he could.

"Himura," he said, "remember how I couldn't even lift this arm above my shoulder? But look at me now," and he raised his arm high. "It's thanks to that German doctor I work for-he knows how to get rid of the scar tissue by pounding the muscle. I'm sure he knows someone up in Tokyo you could see, and..."

"It's quite alright, Yoshida. It's something that's going to happen to all of us sooner or later. It's just that with me, it looks like it'll be sooner. Anyway, you know I can't afford a doctor, and certainly not a gaijin one..."

"Actually, you could if you wanted to. One of the reasons I've got so many doctors hiring me as a translator and interpreter is that a lot of these British and German doctors seem fascinated by our Japanese medicine, and when they find out that my wife still makes the old-fashioned remedies, well, let's just say it's been a mutually beneficial arrangement. She teaches them her formulas, they teach her theirs, they keep giving me their translating and interpreting business. And that's on top of her side business of selling her father's traditional medicines to anyone who comes by and asks, including those gaijin doctors. They may be way past us in their knowledge of muscles and bones, but their potions can't hold a candle to our remedies for everything else."

"But I thought the government was trying to downplay Japanese medicine in favor of Western medicine."

"Well, that's the thing, " Yoshida continued. "Once the government started requiring pharmacists to learn how to make Western medicines and stop selling the traditional ones, people had nowhere to turn except to people like my wife. It's providing us with quite a nice side income, I must say. You've got those skills, too. You could do the same thing."

Kenshin thought for a moment. He had been mixing medications for the Oguni Clinic for awhile, and one or two people had indeed stopped him on the street during that time to ask him if he knew how to make one potion or another.

"You've just been out of society for so long you don't realize that you do have skills other than your sword that can earn you some money," Yoshida added.

A glimmer of optimism was starting to grow in Kenshin. That was always a dangerous sign, of course-its presence always seemed to precede some terrible catastrophe. But what if this time his optimism was not misplaced? "All I know are really the basics, like styptic compounds and cold remedies," he demurred.

"Well, Eiko seems to think the ones you know, especially the ones you learned from that shishou of yours, are top-notch."

Well, if Yoshida was right and he could make some money selling the remedies he had been making for himself all these years... He suddenly felt a giant weight lift from his shoulders.

"You know," Kenshin said, "for the past week or so I've been sitting up on the dojo roof every night wondering how I would ever make it as a settled man, considering that I'm penniless and unqualified for almost any job. But you're right, I do have that one skill..."

His eyes now seemed to focus on something only he could see. Then he said, "I guess I've known for a long time that Kaoru-dono means more to me than just a friend, but of course she didn't know the truth about my past-about Tomoe-until just a few weeks ago. I mean, how could I ever be more than friends with her with that in my past? But I was so happy living there, being accepted for just being myself, I thought maybe I could just keep my feelings in check. It's not that she didn't know I had been a hitokiri, but she certainly didn't know all the details, and I was sure that if she found out the whole truth, she'd ask me to leave.

"But then Enishi came, and I had to tell her. In fact, I told her and all my friends everything about my time as a hitokiri, every bloody bit of it. I thought they'd be disgusted, but they weren't, not even Kaoru. And when I thought she had died at Enishi's hands and then found she was still alive, I knew I had to act on my feelings. But how could I when I have no money, no job prospects? I mean, surely she must have been promised to someone more suitable than me before her father died..." He suddenly realized he had never actually asked her if that was the case.

As he spoke, they heard a rapping at the trapdoor. It was Mizuki bearing a bento box and a writing box. The bento box he handed to Kenshin, the writing box to Yoshida.

"Himura-san, we leave for the army base in an hour, when businesses are out making their last deliveries of the day. Our boat will raise no suspicions then. Yoshida-san, I need a dock location, passwords, anything else we need to know when we bring Himura-san to the base."

Yoshida immediately took the box and sat down to write the information.

"Himura-san, with me."

Mizuki herded Kenshin to the other end of the attic. He leaned against one of the armaments chests and said very softly, "It concerns me that Yoshida-san is aware that the Oniwabanshu still exist in this city. There are very few authorized to know, and he is not one of them."

Kenshin sensed a momentary pinprick of approaching danger, a danger he had a feeling was directed more at Yoshida than himself. How far would this branch of the Oniwabanshu go to protect their secrecy? He had no idea, but he had the feeling that elimination was not beyond this man. "Mizuki-san, I would say that Yoshida is himself concerned that information about himself that he considers secret, such as his connection with me, was known by you."

"He should not be surprised. We make it a practice of investigating anyone we hire to work for us."

"Then you would know that Yoshida-san is the soul of discretion, otherwise I would have been dead long ago in Kyoto."

Mizuki wasn't expecting that.

"I trusted him with my life then, and I still do. I'm sure your onmitsu will have seen that today. Don't let his easy-going nature fool you. He has a mind like a steel trap. For instance, it was his knowledge of old and new writing papers-such a tiny little difference-that led him to catch Nakahira's forgeries. As an agent, you will not find better."

"An agent who also reports to someone else," Mizuki added tersely.

"I believe his other paymaster has the same goal as you-the safety of Osaka, not just Japan itself."

Mizuki grit his teeth. His family couldn't care less about the rest of Japan-they would never make peace with the Meiji government-but Kenshin was right. Hadn't one of the tea shop's European clients recently let slip some information about actions a certain foreign government might be contemplating towards Japan? It had no immediate use to the clan, but if it came to pass, Osaka's business community could suffer, and that could lead to civil and political unrest. "An alliance of a very limited sort might occasionally be useful," Mizuki allowed cautiously. Then he turned his back on Kenshin and stalked over to where Yoshida sat waiting for him. Mizuki could not detect it, but inwardly Kenshin heaved a sigh of relief, for he had a feeling he had just saved his friend's life.

Yoshida rose as Mizuki approached and handed him the instructions for the rendezvous at the army base. Mizuki grabbed it unceremoniously and said brusquely, "Your work is now done. Meet me in my office to wrap things up."

Yoshida seemed somewhat astonished at his abrupt dismissal. "Mizuki-san, shouldn't I accompany...?" but the sentence was never finished, for from the corner of his eye he caught Kenshin subtly shaking his head 'no.' Quickly regrouping, Yoshida instead said, "Yes, Mizuki-san, certainly. Just allow me to say my good-byes."

Mizuki turned his glare now to Kenshin. "Remember, one hour." Then he descended through the trapdoor and pulled it shut behind him.

It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room and then suddenly returned to it. The relief was palpable.

"What was that all about?" Yoshida asked, sitting down somewhat shakily.

Kenshin sat down next to him, his faced drained. "I'm afraid I almost cost you your life."

"What?!"

Kenshin put his hands out as if to stop an onslaught. "It's okay now, but if you had finished that sentence, I was afraid Mizuki-san would do something he'd regret."

"Like what?"

"Like throw you through the trapdoor? Of course," Kenshin added as an afterthought, "he probably wouldn't do that in front of me. Still, I'm betting you wouldn't have made it home. It's because I mentioned the name Oniwabanshu in your presence."

"But I told him I already knew about them."

"Yes, but Mizuki-san made it quite clear to me that you are not authorized to know of their existence, and I got the distinct impression he was prepared to make sure you would never be able to spread that information-ever."

Yoshida's eyes went wide as that sentence sank in.

"Don't worry," Kenshin said, "I let him know in no uncertain terms that if you weren't absolutely trustworthy, I would have been dead long ago in Kyoto, that I still trust you with my life, and they can, too. I believe you are safe now, but still, I am ashamed at having been so thoughtless..."

Yoshida reached out to grab Kenshin's shoulder. "You're a good man, Himura Kenshin. You have nothing to be ashamed of. They, on the other hand..."

"I believe they may want to use you as an intermediary with the military. They are not bad people, just...difficult."

"Hmpf. Well, if you're right, then my superiors will be very happy. Forming an alliance with the Mizuki's is one of the reasons they let me sign on to work for them. As for me, well, I knew they were dangerous from the get-go, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised." He stood now to open the trapdoor. "I'd better be going or Mizuki-san might change his mind about me. Promise you won't drop off the face of the earth again."

Kenshin smiled. "I promise, though I doubt I'll be welcome in Osaka anytime soon."

"Well, just write. And Himura, take care of yourself, will you? I'm tired of putting you in the memorial shrine all the time."

Kenshin chuckled. "I promise," and the two men embraced each other. Then Yoshida was gone through the door.

* * *

An hour. That could be an eternity or the blink of an eye.

Kenshin opened the bento box and started eating, but his mind was on the train station. He remembered some details about it, but he hadn't thought he'd need to memorize its layout. The tracks, he recalled, had a wall on one side-not too high, if he remembered correctly-and there was a kind of open-work roof above them made of steel or iron. He remembered thinking it reminded him of the string game cat's cradle**. **Its open lattice-work could serve him well. The reception hall, however, he had avoided and therefore had no idea what it looked like. If it was anything like the station in Tokyo, however, it was an area he'd want to avoid, for above all he was determined not to put innocent civilians at risk of harm from angry yakuza.

He continued to eat, not really noticing the food, as his mind turned to Kaoru. It had never occurred to him before that her father might have promised her in marriage to some family or other, and if her father had, then the only honorable thing for him to do would be to move out immediately. If he had ever wondered if what he felt for Kaoru was truly love, he knew it now-his heart sank at the prospect. On the other hand, no one had ever come forward after all this time to claim her, and Kenshin suspected that if someone did, he'd be met by a well-aimed bokken.

But what about Kaoru herself? He had known for months that Kaoru had feelings for him-really, he wasn't as dense as people thought he was!-but since returning from Enishi's island, something had changed. It wasn't that he thought she didn't care for him anymore, but sometimes, when they were together, she'd seem somewhat... anxious? No. Afraid? Maybe. He had certainly not helped matters the other day when he lost his temper with Yahiko; she had seemed positively shaken by his outburst. Of course, as a rurouni he could never allow himself lose his temper, but now that he was a settled man? Maybe that was the problem, that she only knew him as the rurouni...

He was interrupted by knocking at the trapdoor. Where had the time gone! He quickly popped the last bit of food in his mouth (what a delicious fishball, he suddenly realized!), then stood to pull the door open. It was one of Mizuki's warehousemen with a stack of clothing and something furry-looking in his arms, which he handed up to Kenshin.

"The okashira orders that you put these on," the man said. "Then come downstairs immediately for a briefing."

Kenshin handed him the bento box in return and said, "Hai."

He looked at the items the man had delivered: a green hanten with the crest of the Black and Green Tea Shop, black monpei, and a black, short-haired wig. He chuckled at the wig. So, Mizuki was going to make him hide his hair after all. Well, it only made sense in this instance. He quickly removed and folded his hakama, put on the monpei, tucked in his kimono, then donned his own warm haori and slipped the tea-shop hanten over it. Last came the wig, which was roomy enough to accommodate his ponytail and still be cinched tight with its drawstrings. Then he packed away his hakama in his travel bag, slipped the sakabatou into the bag's holder, slung the bag on his back, and descended the ladder into the warehouse proper.

The warehouseman was waiting for him at the foot of the ladder. "This way," he said, and led Kenshin to Mizuki's office.

It became apparent at once that something was not quite right. There was no reason for an onmitsu, for that was what the warehouseman was, to totally mask his ki while merely escorting Kenshin to a briefing. Kenshin had, of course, been carefully monitoring what he himself was allowing to be read, but he was at least allowing _something_ to be read. He knew instinctively that there would be no overt signs of danger, but now he cast out his senses for covert signs and found them: just the faintest hints of the presence-maybe-of many more than just Mizuki Michio in the room ahead of him. A briefing, the warehouseman had told him. Something else was going on. He prepared himself mentally for a confrontation.

The warehouseman opened the western-style door, then stood back to allow Kenshin to enter. Before him, arrayed in a semi-circle on slightly raised cushions, were Mizuki Michio and his twin Takeo, their elderly mother in the center between them, a middle-aged woman on either side of the twins-wives? sisters?-and three adolescent boys, two on Takeo's side, one on Michio's. Behind them stood five warehousemen, presumably cousins. The arrangement was clearly designed to place Kenshin in a subordinate position. As etiquette thus demanded, he seated himself on the waiting tatami mat in front of them, bowed low, then remained seated formally, his hands on the floor before him and his eyes lowered as if in the presence of a great lord. There was the slightest rustle of surprise at this.

Then Michio said, "Himura-san, you are aware that when Shinomori Aoshi, our chief okashira, told us of his alliance with you and requested that we give you aid and assistance, we were not happy about it. What did we know of our chief okashira after his total absence of nearly eight years? Our brethren in Tokyo had been forbidden by him to say anything of his whereabouts or his doings during that time, and they obeyed. Now we know that he worked for a notorious drug lord in order to give his four most trusted comrades a chance to live in the new era, and that thanks to you, those four died protecting him. We know he was so consumed with revenge that he gave himself over to a man dedicated to destroying the hated Meiji regime so that he could kill you, only to find himself defeated by you. He now claims that you brought him back to the world. What are we to make of this?"

Kenshin said nothing.

"As for you, what do we know of you, the most hated symbol of the revolution that ended our way of life? As you say, you have lived a hidden life, so hidden, in fact, that even our own onmitsu were always a day late-sometimes just an hour late-finding you. And yes, we did search for you; the bounties that first year or two were worth the trouble.

"And so, we rely on what we hear and read in books-that you're a bloodthirsty demon, that you kill for sport, that death and chaos follow in your wake. So when our brethren in Tokyo told us last winter that the Hitokiri Battousai was engaged in a killing spree in Tokyo, we believed it, until they gave us the description of the man. We at least knew that about you, that you were not some giant but a very small man with red hair. But then came a flood of reports from them about that red-haired man, that he was mild-mannered, that he fought but would not kill. Yet an onmitsu who witnessed it said this man displayed the unmistakable mastery of the sword for which the Hitokiri Battousai was known, that he then became an ally of Saitou Hajime of the Shinsengumi to wage war against that very same man who was dedicated to overthrowing the government, the one our former chief okashira had joined. And so, by extension, you were waging war against Shinomori Aoshi. Yet our brethren in Kyoto took you in with open arms when you were at death's door. What are we to make of that?"

Still Kenshin said nothing. He was not sure where their talk was heading. He started calculating what actions he might need to take to escape.

"Himura-san," Takeo broke in, "what my brother is trying to say is that you confound us. Instead of a proud, cold-blooded killer, we find a seemingly humble man who carries a non-killing blade. Instead of taking justifiable revenge against your adversary Nakahira, you show not just restraint but mercy. Your skills are indeed worthy of legend, yet you seem to try everything not to have to use them. In fact, you seem to be..."

"...a man of integrity," croaked out a scratchy woman's voice. "He is a man of integrity."

Every head in the room, including Kenshin's, turned toward the elderly woman at the center of the circle, the matriarch of the clan. Clearly, hearing her speak was not only uncustomary, but totally unexpected.

"Himura-san," Michio continued once he had collected himself, "to be told that the man who would resume the mantle of chief okashira has formed an alliance with the symbol of our greatest defeat did not sit well with us. It raised the question of whether Shinomori-sama was still the same warrior he had always been-or whether he'd lost his mind. Now we see the wisdom of his alliance with you."

To Kenshin's astonishment, at some unseen signal the entire group bowed to him. He immediately bowed lower and began to say, "Sessha is not worthy of such praise..." but he was stopped by the sudden appearance before him of the family matriarch, who had moved silently and swiftly as if sliding on glass to sit directly in front of him. She placed a small parcel on the floor between them.

"Our rarest tea," the old woman croaked out, "as thanks for bringing our chief okashira back to the world." Then, as silently and swiftly as before, she was back between her two sons.

Kenshin stared at the small packet, dumbstruck. If he remembered correctly from when he browsed the store the day before, this tea was worth a small fortune. Not trusting his words, not knowing what to say even if he did, he immediately put his forehead to the floor. No greater honor could he imagine than to have this family trust him.

"Himura-san, please raise yourself," Takeo said. "Our clan wishes you to know that should you ever need our assistance again, we would be honored to help. Now, we'd better get moving or we'll miss the last launch of boats for the day. Himura-san, if I could speak with you briefly?"

Kenshin watched as the rest of the family silently filed out of the room. Then he bowed once more to Takeo, taking the time of this small gesture to try to recover from his total astonishment at what had just happened. Takeo moved to sit across from him.

"Himura-san," he said, his voice now all business, "my brother has told you of my investigation concerning the chief of police, correct?"

Kenshin nodded yes.

"It is thanks to your pursuit of Nakahira Masayoshi that the final pieces of this puzzle have fallen into place." At Kenshin's look of incomprehension, he said, "It was the loan shark your comrade Yoshida-san tracked down, the one who loaned the money to Nakahira, who held the answer. His books showed payments by all the main yakuza gangs to the police chief-payoffs that appear to be in return for the chief assigning each gang their own turf in the city and a promise of police non-intervention if they stick to their territories. This is apparently how this new chief-for he was only brought in two years ago to quell the chaos from the samurai uprising-brought order so quickly to the city. We, of course, all assumed it was due to the new methods of police deployment he used, and I am not ashamed to say that I thought it an honor to serve a man who could accomplish what he did.

"But about a year ago, as the rebellion was ending, I started hearing rumors that the yakuza had not really been reined in, that they were paying for assigned territories and the promise of the police turning a blind eye to their activities. With the Mamushi Gang essentially destroyed, however, the remaining gangs are bound to fight for control of their assigned territory. Now you understand why the chief is apoplectic at the thought that his deal with the yakuza may be crumbling."

"Not to mention the money they won't be paying him," Kenshin noted.

"That as well-_if_ what we believe is happening is really true, for we still have only circumstantial evidence to prove it. That's why I must ask: Would you be willing to put yourself in some small danger to drive the last nail into this coffin?"

"Captain Mizuki, whatever I can do to help," Kenshin answered without hesitation..

"Good. Your desire to take the train sets up the perfect trap. Both the police and yakuza expect you to either break into the ticket office to retrieve your ticket..."

"...which I didn't even know existed," Kenshin noted.

The tiniest beginnings of a smile curled at the edge of Takeo's mouth."Yes, well, _they_ both know it exists. Or they figure you will somehow hide in plain sight, as you are reputed to be able to do, among the crowds waiting to board the train. What I am asking is that you arrive at the station well in advance of any crowds, perhaps two or three hours before departure, and find a way onto the platform without going through the waiting room."

"That should not be difficult," Kenshin said. "In fact, I was already planning to do that."

"Then here's how we set the trap. I will inform the chief that an unimpeachable source has told me this is what you plan to do. If the chief is on the up and up-and I pray that he is- he will place a squad of police at the station well in advance of departure in order to intercept you at the platform. For this reason, you should come with an army escort. Their presence will prevent your arrest. But if I am right about the chief's links to the yakuza, he may leave it to them to try to kill you. That would solve his problem of being pressured by the mayor and the head of the Central Bank to leave you alone. Of course, the only way the yakuza could know you'd be on the platform so early and not in the waiting room would be through the chief. Case closed; I and my men arrest the chief immediately. The catch is, if it is the yakuza who show up, they _will_ try to kill you on the spot."

Kenshin thought out the scenario carefully, then nodded his head and said, "Agreed."

"Good. In the meantime, while you're on the delivery boat you'll act as one of our warehousemen helping to unload crates. When you finally arrive at the army base, you will place the wig and hanten in the one remaining crate. We can't allow you to keep anything with our store's crest on it, and that wig is the one my brother uses when he needs to impersonate me. The monpei you can keep."

Kenshin bowed. "I understand."

"Good luck."

* * *

**JAPANESE TERMS**:

**bushido**: The traditional samurai code of honor stressing self-discipline, bravery, and simple living. After the revolution, inexpensive little novels stressing this code were very popular.

**yakuza: **gangsters

**gaijin**: foreigner

**onmitsu**: ninja spy

**bento box**: a box packed with a meal

**cat's cradle**: Yes, the Japanese had a version of this game, called ayatori, for centuries.

**bokken: **a wooden sword of about the same weight as a katana, Kaoru's weapon of choice

**hanten: **the worker's version of a haori.

**monpei**: pants worn by workers and farmers

**haori: **a hip- or thigh-length kimono-like jacket, often padded for warmth

**okashira**: boss

s**essha**: this unworthy one

**Author's Note:** Ah, poor Kenshin. Doesn't the poor guy deserve to just board the train like a normal human being and go home to Kaoru in peace? But where would the fun be in that, right?

Many thanks, everyone, for your wonderful reviews. I always hold my breath after I post a chapter for fear I might have blown it. Two reviewers, in fact, wondered if I had indeed "blown it" in a tiny way with my use of the phrase "political football." As it turns out, if by "football" you actually mean what we Americans call "soccer," then yes, Japan had it in 1878. According to an online article from The Japan Forum, soccer was introduced to Japan by an English military officer "in the early Meiji period." Also, another site says that a soccer-like game called kemari had been played in Japan as early as 1000 B.C., so I think I'm safe. Also, thanks to 'Kenshin's Soul' for catching a typo, which I hope to fix when I post this chapter.

Just a note about my reference to the government trying to push Western-style medicines instead of traditional Japanese ones. I have read that at this time, as part of the push to modernize, the government required pharmacists to learn to compound and sell primarily Western medicines in order to receive a license, so in case you were wondering, I didn't make this up! However, I will admit I have no idea whether there was ever something called the Army-Navy Joint Forces Base in Osaka, though I do know that both the Army and Navy had bases there.

My thanks once again to the inestimable 'older woman,' who always manages to find time to help me not embarrass myself with glaring errors or get caught in prolix prose (hit the dictionaries, everyone)!


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